DP 559 

F3 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES 

Copy 1 

A Study in Democracy 



BY 

HAROLD UNDERWOOD FAULKNER, M. A. 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN THE 

Faculty of Political Science 
Columbia University 



NEW YORK 

1916 



CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES 



A Study in Democracy 



HAROLD UNDERWOOD FAULKNER, M. A. 

■in 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN THE 

Faculty of Political Science 
Columbia University 



NEW YORK 
1916 






Copyright, 1916 

BY 

HAROLD UNDERWOOD FAULKNER 



PREFACE 

The real significance of the Chartist movement has 
only recently been realized. Its apparent sudden col- 
lapse under circumstances humiliating to its followers has 
enabled the average bourgeois historian to dismiss the 
whole subject with a few remarks emphasizing chiefly 
some humorous incidents of the closing scene. The in- 
fluence of the movement in arousing the English proleta- 
riat to a class consciousness and in preparing them for 
their inevitable share in the political structure of English 
democracy has never been adequately appreciated, while 
the part taken by the Chartists and their leaders in the 
various reform movements of the time has been almost 
ignored. Outside of the interesting and straightfor- 
ward history of Gammage, a prominent Chartist, most 
of the attention devoted to the subject has been by 
French and German scholars, the sum total of which, 
however, has been astonishingly small when the impor- 
tance of Chartism is considered. 

By the religious and political radical the idea that 
organized Christianity as represented in the churches has 
ordinarily been opposed to progress, especially scientific 
and political, has long been accepted as a truism. 
Ardent churchmen, on their side, aroused by the taunts 
of their opponents and under the spell of an expanding 
democracy and new conceptions of social justice, have in 
recent years endeavored to picture Christ as the first 
great reformer and his teachings as a platform advanced 
enough for the most radical. Realizing that a large 
469] 5 



PREFACE 



[470 



element of truth underlies the arguments of both groups 
and with no intention to answer generally any of the 
questions involved, the author has thought it worth while 
to take some important movement in favor of democracy 
and examine as closely as the available sources permitted 
the attitude of the various churches toward it. Because 
of the slight attention heretofore given it and because 
of its unique position as the first distinctly proletariat 
agitation of modern times the Chartist movement has 
been chosen. 

In the preparation of this essay the author is largely 
indebted to Professor James T. Shotwell, under whose 
direction the work was done and from whose criticisms 
the thesis has profited; to Professor Edwin R. A. Selig- 
man, who put at his disposal the Chartist collection in 
his private library; to Professor William Walker Rock- 
well of Union Theological Seminary, who read the thesis 
and made numerous suggestions; and to his Father, 
Professor John Alfred Faulkner of Drew Theological 
Seminary. 

H. U. F. 

Madison, N. J., April 10, 1916. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface. , . . , 5, 

CHAPTER I 

Attitude of Chartism Towards the Church 

I. Religion of the Working Classes 9 

II. Chartism and Christianity 19 

A. Chartist Interpretation of Christianity 19 

B. Christianity and Politics 23 

III. Attitude of the Chartists Towards the Church and Clergy 28 

IV. Program of the Chartists in Respect to the Church „ . . 33 

V. Visits to the Churches 35 

CHAPTER II 
Chartist Substitutions for the Prevailing Christianity 

I. Christian Chartist Churches 42 

II. Education 46 

III. Temperance and Teetotalism 52 

IV. Other Reforms 56 

CHAPTER III 
Attitude of the Churches Towards Chartism 

I. The Church of England ...,...., 59 

A. The Church as a Whole 59 

B. The High Church or Oxford Movement 68 

C. The Broad Church 75 

II. The Wesleyan Methodist Church and Its Offshoots 80 

III. The Other Nonconformist Churches 96 

IV. Scotland 107 

CHAPTER IV 

The Positive Contribution of the Church to the Chartist Movement 

I. The Work of the Clergy 1 10 

II. The Complete Suffrage Movement 115 

471] 7 



8 CONTENTS [472 

PAGB 
APPENDICES 

I. Petition of the Complete Suffrage Conference of April, 1842, to the House 

of Commons 121 

II. Chartist Gospel — A New Revelation ........ 123 

III. The Church of England and Chartism 126 

IV. A Prayer Recently Delivered At the Opening of a Chartist Church in 

London 129 

V. Rules and Objects of the East London Chartist Temperance Associa- 
tion 131 

VI. Charles Kingsley's Appeal to the Chartists of April 12, 1848 .... 133 

Bibliography . 135 



CHAPTER I 
Attitude of Chartism towards the Church 

i. religion of the working classes 

The Reform Bill of 1832 was the first notable result of 
the Industrial Revolution upon the constitutional frame- 
work of the English Government. It increased the 
electorate and recognized the distribution of population 
in the awarding of representation. But the Reform Bill 
of 1832 was not a democratic measure. Although both 
the middle and lower classes had contributed to the 
struggle for its adoption only the former benefited from 
it. The lower bourgeoisie and proletariat, comprising 
the majority of the population, were still left without the 
vote, and to them the Reform Bill was to be but the 
first step toward an ultimate democracy. 

When the smoke of the struggle cleared away, the 
great class still disfranchised discovered that not only 
had they reaped no benefit from the reform they had so 
largely helped to win, but that their lot under a re- 
formed Parliament dominated by the doctrines of the 
Manchester School seemed to be worse than ever. The 
political discontent of the people was at last given voice 
in 1838 when the People's Charter was launched under 
the supervision of the London Working Men's Associa- 
tion. The demands of the People's Charter which 
formed the program of the Chartist movement were six 
in number and included manhood suffrage, annual par- 
liaments, vote by ballot, abolition of property qualifica- 
473] 9 



IO CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [474 

tion for seats in Parliament, payment of members of 
Parliament and division of the country into equal electoral 
districts. 1 

Although the manifestations of Chartism were political, 
its causes were largely economic. 2 The unparalleled 
social misery of the people 3 gave to the Chartist move- 
ment a stimulus which made it in a sense but a sequel to 
the agitations for factory reform and in opposition to the 
New Poor Law. The attainment of the Charter was 
expected to usher in the social millennium. But the most 
significant feature of Chartism was that it was the first 
distinctive workingmen's movement of modern times, 4 
and the Charter contained both their ideal of political 
justice and their hope of social amelioration. 5 

'Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, new ed. (London, 
1894),. Appendix B, where the Charter is given. 

2 Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 6th ed. (London, 1901), 
p. 440; Walpole, History of England, rev. ed. (London, 1902-5), iv, 
50 ; Carlyle, Chartism, chapter i ; Rose, Rise of Democracy (London, 
^97) , pp. 129, 130 ; Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters 
(Madison, 1900), xii, 567. 

3 Parliamentary Papers. 

4 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (London, 1892), Intro- 
duction, p. xxx. 

5 It is outside the field of the monograph to enter into a history of 
the Chartist Movement. The leading studies covering it will be found 
in the bibliography under the heading "General Works" under 
" Chartism." The chief source is the remarkably interesting but 
detailed running account of R. G. Gammage, a prominent participant 
in the agitation, in his History of the Chartist Movement, 1837 — 1854 
(London, new ed., 1894). Failure to consider the social and economic 
phases of the movement is its chief weakness. Next in importance to 
Gammage is Eduard Dolleans' Le Chartisme, 2 vols. (Paris 1912) , strong 
in its development of the social and political theories of the proletariat 
but disappointing to the student for its lack of footnotes. Tildsley in 
his Die Entstehung und die okonomischen Grundsatze der Chartisten- 
bewegung (Jena, 1898) deals intelligently with the economic back- 
ground and Dierlamm {Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbeweg- 



475] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH n 

In this first great struggle of the proletariat the ques- 
tion as to the attitude of organized Christianity, as repre- 
sented by the Church of England and the dissenting 
bodies, early presented itself. Would these churches 
officially keep out of the struggle entirely or would they 
line up on one side or the other? With the vast polit- 
ical and spiritual power of the churches enlisted in the 
cause of democracy success was assured; without their 
co-operation the struggle would be infinitely harder. 
It is to an examination of the relationship of the English 
proletariat to the church during the years of the Chartist 
movement that the following pages are devoted. 

In a study of the relationship between the Chartist 
movement and the church some attention should be given 
in the first place to the state of religion amongst the 
working class and the type of religion, if any, professed 
by them. The extraordinary increase of population fol- 
lowing the English industrial revolution, an increase 
which in less than 150 years more than quadrupled the 
population of England alone, 1 could not fail but have its 
effect upon the religious life of the country. If the Es- 
tablished and Nonconformist churches were able ap- 
proximately to take care of the population in 1750, the 
reverse was true seventy-five years later. Population, 
especially in the large towns which sprang up with aston- 
ishing rapidity 2 all over Great Britain, had long since 

ung und ihr Widerhall in der offentlichen Meinung, Leipzig, 1909) 
with the pamphlet literature and its effect. Carlyle's Chartism (1839) is 
merely an interpretation. 

1 The population of England in 1750 was about 6,467,000 ; in 191 1 about 
34,045,290. 

2 Weber, Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (N. Y., 1899), 
p. 40 et. seq. 



I2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [476 

outgrown the antiquated machinery of the State Church. 1 
Although the Church of England was taking on a new 
lease of life through the enthusiasm engendered by the 
Oxford movement, and because parliamentary investiga- 
tions and Ecclesiastical Commissions had made it neces- 
sary, only a beginning had yet been made in reclaiming 
the lost multitude. In Leeds, a parish numbering 150,- 
000, the parish church had fifty communicants. 2 Nor had 
the Dissenters been able to take advantage of the oppor- 
tunity; most of the sects by the second quarter of the 19th 
century represented almost entirely a middle-class con- 
stituency. Even the Wesleyan Methodist Church, which 
in early days had been preeminently the church of the 
manufacturing and mining poor and, but for its mode of 
government, might have earned the name of the Church 
of the Industrial Revolution, had by the beginning of the 
Chartist period also suffered the blight of respectability 
and had lost the confidence of the intelligent workingman 
because of the conservatism of its political policy, the 
Tory affiliations of its leading ministers and the undemo- 
cratic form of its government. 

The support of the churches in England during this 
period was decidedly a middle-class affair. Observers of 
all types of religious thought recognized it. " What 
struck every cultivated foreigner who set up his residence 
in England ", said Engels, who was a close observer, 
"was what he was bound to consider the religious big- 
otry and stupidity of the English respectable middle 
class." 3 Robertson as pastor in his new field at Brigh- 

1 Parliamentary Reports of Ecclesiastical Commissions. Perry, A 
History of the English Church (London, 1890), vol. iii, p. 260 et seq. 
Bloomfield, A Memoir of Charles James Bloomfield (London, 1863), 
vol. i, ch. ix. 

2 Perry, op. cit., iii, 262. 3 Engels, Socialism, p. xiv. 



4 77] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH ^ 

ton found only the middle class faithful. 1 The Church 
of England Magazine recognized fully this relation of 
the middle class to English religion, 2 while Miall, the 
most acute journalist of the Nonconformists, affirmed 
that British Christianity was " essentially the Christianity 
developed by a middle-class soil " and as such " fast de- 
caying" and "void of efficiency." 3 

If a monopolization of religion by the bourgeoisie was 
admitted, the lack on the part of the proletariat of a 
formal religious affiliation with any sect was equally ap- 
parent and deplored by ministers of all denominations. 
Says Mozley, one of the leaders of the High-Church 
movement, "It may be truly said that the whole of 
our manufacturing people, the whole of the poorer 
classes in our towns, are alienated from the church. 
Yet this does not express by any means the sum of their 
misery. An enormous proportion, three fourths or nine 
tenths, are neither church people, nor of any other reli- 

1 Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, M. A. (New 
York, n. d,) p. no. 

' 2 " Amidst the reports of infidelity reigning, either covertly or openly, 
over large bodies of men in Europe, it is satisfactory to find our middle 
classes so little affected by the plausibilities of false speculation. Were 
they to lose their religious principles, the lower classes would soon 
break out into open infidelity, and then ' the beginning of the end ' 
would be near. Of this catastrophe there appears, at present, no sign ; 
though it is to be feared that false notions, and destructive ideas in 
morals, have infected numbers of the workmen in the towns and great 
factories. Indeed, the middle classes are less likely to fall into such 
errors now than twenty years ago, when a dangerous spirit seemed 
brooding over the land, waiting for a signal to burst into fearful activity. 
It is in the religious activity of the middle classes that we must rely for 
the most effective checks to the evils arising from our highly artificial 
state of society, and from the spread of luxurious habits consequent upon 
the diffusion of wealth." The Church of England Magazine, vol. 
xxiii, p. 20, (July io, 1847). 

3 Miall, Life of Edward Miall (London, 1884), pp. 151, 152. 



I4 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [478 

gion. " *■ " An artizan with his wife and children, " says 
the same author, "are seldom seen anywhere ; at church 
never. " 2 A workingman, who had given the subject 
some thought, and who spoke from personal observation, 
believed that a mechanic was " as seldom found in a reli- 
gious assembly as a religious man in many of our work- 
shops. " 3 The causes for this alienation are not difficult 
to ascertain. Christianity was "widely and truly be- 
lieved to be as a whole opposed to the social aspirations 
of the nation, " and nothing could save it from the 
"charge of being obstructive and reactionary." 4 The 
workingmen turned disgustedly away from an Establish- 
ment which sought to perpetuate in the government 
abuses only too apparent, and from the Dissenters, who, 
after they had carried the Reform Bill of 1832, had, as 
the workingmen believed, betrayed them. 

To take the place of religious enthusiasm the working- 
men found an outlet for their feelings in " reforming 
clubs, Chartist gatherings, trades unions, and political 
debating circles." 5 As regards religion the reaction 
from the worn-out evangelicalism of the period devel- 
oped itself along two lines. The first of these was infi- 
delity. Modern free thought, launched by Herbert of 
Cherbury and Hobbes, and taken up enthusiastically on 
the Continent, now returned to the land of its birth, but- 
tressed with all the learning of the rapidly developing 
sciences. But whereas in its early days it was the play- 

1 British Critic, vol. 28, p. 346 (1840). 

2 Ibid., p. 337. 

3 The Literature of the Working Men, vol. i, Apr. 1850, p. 5; also 
vide The Champion, vol. i, p. 156 et. seq. 

* Hall, The Social Meaning of Modern Religious Movements in Eng- 
land (N. Y., 1900), p. 162. 

5 Ibid., p. 168. 



4791 ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 1 $ 

thing of aristocrats it now became the accepted creed of 
thousands of workingmen. " In order to find people 
who dared to use their own intellectual faculties with re- 
gard to religious matters, " said Engels, "you had to go 
amongst the uneducated, the ' great unwashed ', as they 
were called, the working people, especially the Owenite 
Socialists." 1 Kingsley was no less dogmatic. "The 
devil has got the best long ago, " he complained, for "the 
cream and pith of working intellect is almost exclusively 
self-educated, and therefore, also infidel ! " 2 Disraeli de- 
scribes St. Lys, his ideal clergyman, as a vicar " who 
came among a hundred thousand heathen to preach the 
word of God." 3 This spread of infidelity was naturally 
distressing to the churchmen, 4 and it was a desire to 
win the workingman back to Christianity chiefly that 
moved Maurice and Kingsley to their philanthropic ef- 
forts for the poor of London. 

The growth of infidelity was accentuated by the influ- 
ence of the socialistic movement, which, up to that time 
in consequence of the well-known views of Owen, had 
been largely tinged with unbelief. The fact that many 
of the Chartist leaders and great hosts of their followers 
were both socialists and infidels gave a handle to the 
continued accusations of their enemies. Such Chartist 
leaders as Hetherington, Watson, Carlile, Walter Cooper 
and Holyoake were actively associated with one or more 
of the numerous infidel papers which usually also advo- 
cated socialism and incidentally Chartism as the most 

1 Engels, Socialism, p. xiv. 

2 Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of His Life, ed. by 
His Wife, ioth ed. (London, 1878), pp. 234, 248; Alton Locke, p. 275. 

'Disraeli, Sybil, p. 125. 

i Church of England Magazine, xxiii, 20 ; Christian Guardian, 1847, 
p. 325 ; Methodist Minutes, ix, 115, 403. 



1 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [ 4 go 

practical means at hand for the inaugurating of the new- 
social order, 1 while Thomas Cooper and others were 
active in the propaganda of David Friedrich Strauss, 
extremely popular in England among certain classes 
after the publication of " Leben Jesu."' 2 The works of 
Paine, Holyoake and other religious radicals were regu- 
larly advertised in many of the leading Chartist journals, 
including The Northetn Star. The Englishmen of the 
upper and middle classes had already learned from French 
history to associate political radicalism with infidelity, 
and now the development in England seemed only to 
prove an inalienable connection between the two. Such 
phrases as "infidel democracy," 3 "sedition and blas- 
phemy," 4 etc., came soon almost unconsciously to be 
part of the intellectual equipment of these two classes. 
"Republicans, Infidels, Sabbath-breakers and Blas- 
phemers, who are, unhappily, a curse to themselves, a 
curse to their Fellow-Countrymen, and a curse to the 
land that owns them," 5 is one description of the Chartists, 
and of by no means an exceptional type. The charge 
of infidelity naturally took its place as a leading stock 
argument against Chartism and was continually held up 
before the eyes of the horrified bourgeoisie in sermons, 
pamphlets and speeches to such an extent that the two 
were, in the minds of many, synonymous. 

1 The growth of the infidel press in England during this period is re- 
markable. It included such papers as, " The Movement" edited by 
Holyoake and Ryall ; "The Reasoner : and Heiald of Progress" 
backed by many leading Chartists; "The Union," edited by G. A, 
Fleming; " The Oracle of Reason," edited by Charles Southworth and 
Thomas Paterson ; " The Model Republic" and " Cooler's Journal." 

translated by George Eliot, 1846. 

3 Wesleyan Meth. Mag., Feb. 1838, vol. xvii, p. 153. 

* The People, i, 333. 

5 The Real Chartist, by C. L., 4 ed. (London, 1848) p. 13. 



4 8i] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH iy 

The Chartists of course resented this, 1 and justly, for 
their ranks included many who, although having no con- 
nection or interest in the church, could still be designated 
as Christians. 

The second reaction against the Christianity of the 
time as exemplified in the churches assumed a form far 
less violent than infidelity. It took the form of a feeling 
of either indifference or absolute hostility to the church 
and ecclesiasticism although coupled with loyalty to the 
tenets of Christianity. The group of persons actuated 
by this feeling undoubtedly far outnumbered either the 
infidels or the active church members. 2 The feeling of 
many was much like that which Solly puts in the mouth 
of his Chartist working man who says : 

None of us had any great love for " the cloth." Not that we 
had any bad feelings towards them, but I believe we mostly 
thought the whole Church Establishment was a matter of 
money, and that all clergymen did and said their doings and 
sayings merely to get paid. So that we had rather a feeling 
of contempt for them because we thought them so uncom- 
monly like hypocrites. The same with regard to religion gen- 
erally. There was very little real enmity against it, as far as 
I could see, among workingmen. We only thought it a hum- 
bug, and not worth a sensible man's troubling his head about.' 

The characterization of Solly is accurate in all but one 
respect. To the leaders, and, it is fair to infer, a majority 
of their followers, this attitude seemed too passive. They 
were bitterly opposed to the State Church and to the in- 
terpretation of Christianity which actuated all of the 
denominations, and waged a strenuous campaign in be- 

1 The Republican, p. 73 et seq. 

2 Ibid., p. 76. 

3 Solly, James Woodford (London, 1881), i, 214. 



jg CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [48.2 

half of their views. The Chartists had both a distinct 
conception of their own as to what Christianity was and 
a definite program of church reform. 

One student of the movement believes that the ma- 
jority of Chartists belonged to the State Church. 1 But 
to infer, as he does, that such is the case because they 
attended the parish church on occasion is erroneous. One 
clergyman upon such a visit went so far as to tell them 
that their coming to a church was something out of the 
ordinary. 2 It seems nearer the truth to say that the 
Chartists, while a majority were decided believers in 
Christianity, were indifferent toward all the churches. 

The Chartist leaders were drawn from all denomina- 
tions. Among the infidels were numbered Hetherington, 
Watson, Carlile, Holyoake and Walter Cooper. The 
Established Church of England contributed Charles 
Westerton, Dr. Arthur S. Wade and Rev. Thomas Spen- 
cer; the Established Church of Scotland, Rev. Patrick 
Brewster ; and the Secessionists, Dr. John Ritchie. Giles 
was a Baptist, Miall a Congregationalist, O'Malley a 
Catholic. Sturge and Pierce were Quakers. Rev. J. R. 
Stephens started as a Methodist minister, was expelled 
for his activities in promoting the separation of Church 
and State, 3 and continued as pastor of three chapels near 
Ashley built by the workingmen there, 4 800 of the 
members of his circuit having seceded with him. 
Thomas Cooper as a young man was a Methodist local 
preacher. During the Chartist period he drifted to in- 
fidelity, but eventually returned to Christianity and be- 

^ierlamm, Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegting und 
ihr Widerhallin der offentlichen Meinung (Leipzig, 1909), p. 60. 
8 Dr. Whittaker's Sermon to the Chartists, p. 14. 
3 Smith, History of Methodism, bk. viii, ch. ii. 
4 Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, p. 56. 



483] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH Y g 

came a minister of the Baptists. 1 Joseph Barker, born 
and educated a Wesleyan Methodist, forsook that church 
for the Methodist New Connexion, from which he was 
expelled on doctrinal grounds. 2 He became a Unitarian, 
later a deist, but finally he too returned to Christianity. 
Lovett's mother was a Methodist, while he himself was 
for a short while a Bryanite (Methodist Bible Christian). 3 
A defender of Christianity, 4 he belonged to no church. 
When asked by the chaplain, on his admission to prison, 
what was his religion, he answered that he " was of that 
religion which Christ taught, and which very few in au- 
thority practice " if he might judge from their conduct. 5 
O'Neill in his later life became a Baptist minister 6 as did 
Vince. Vincent, while not a member, was a frequent at- 
tendant in Quaker meetings and active in their work. 7 
Henry Solly and W. J. Fox were both prominent Chart- 
ists and leading Unitarian ministers. 

11 Chartism and Christianity 

a. the chartist interpretation of christianity 

Although the English Chartist was a stranger to the 
church, he was, as a rule, familiar with the teachings of 
Christ and soon came to entertain some definite ideas in 
regard to Christianity. He reduced it to a formula simple 
but practical. He emphasized only the social aspect, 

hooper, Life of Thomas Cooper, 2nd ed, (London, 1872), pp. 81, 82. 

* New History of Methodism (London, 1909), i, 525. 

3 Lovett, Life and Struggles of William Lovett in His Pursuit of 
Bread, Knowledge, and Freedom (London, 1876), pp. 7, 22. 

* Ibid., p. 35. 
5 Ibid., p. 229. 

6 Gammage, op. cit. p. 402. 

7 Diet, of Nat. Biog., Iviii, p. 359. 



20 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [484 

Christianity in his mind being comprised largely in 
Matthew xxii, 39; xxv, and similar sections. These he 
took seriously. " If one thing is more certain than 
another, " said one, " it is this, that it is the duty of 
Christians to labour for the welfare of their fellow- 
men." 1 The typical Chartist viewpoint was similar to 
that of Lovett, who said he had come "to look upon 
practical Christianity as a union for the promotion of 
loving kindness and good deeds to one another, and not 
a thing of form for idlers to profit by, who in their 
miserable interpretation of it too often cause men to 
neglect the improvement of the present in their aspira- 
tions of the future." 2 

If Christianity could be reduced to a matter of the 
Golden Rule 3 what was the use of forms and ceremonies, 
of priests and masses ? Why worry about creeds when 
the commands for action were so plain? It was not 
more churches that England needed, they thought, but 
an "increase of pure, practical and undefiled religion," 
for " church going is but a means to an end." + What is 
necessary to regenerate the world, says Alton Locke, 
" is not more of any system good or bad, but simply 
more of the Spirit of God." 5 Consequently when the 
Chartists essayed themselves to put their hands to the 
task of organizing and running a church, they eliminated 
creeds, as such, although retaining baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, and put the entire emphasis upon good 
works. 6 

1 The People, pp. 19, 20. 

7 Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 35. 

3 Chartist Circular, p. 5. 

i Livesey's Moral Reformer, p. 133. 

6 P. 105. 

* Vide infra, p. 42 et seq. 



485] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 2I 

The more they studied the words of Christ, the more 
they were struck with the illogicality of the situation as 
it existed. The Established Church with its vast wealth, 
highly paid functionaries and elaborate ceremonial ap- 
peared to them the very antithesis of Christianity ; while 
the Dissenters, engrossed in endless differences over 
doctrine and church government, and generally aloof to 
the needs of social amelioration at their doors, seemed 
equally astray. How any professing Christian could 
remain indifferent to the miserable condition prevalent 
among the manufacturing and agricultural poor was to 
the Chartist a mystery. But not only was the church 
indifferent to their state but it was accused of joining 
hands " with bloodthirsty and deceitful men to render 
their misery complete and irremediable." * 

What the Chartists wanted to see on the part of pro- 
fessing Christians was some practical demonstrations of 
the social teachings of Christ which should take the form 
of an effort to improve their lot. Nor was it charity 
they demanded so much as justice. 2 Christ and Christi- 
anity to them meant the " lifting of heavy burthens and 
bringing them freedom and justice as well as soup-tickets 
and tracts." 3 

Once granted that the mission of Christianity was to 
bring to them freedom and social justice, the only ques- 
tion remaining to be settled was how this object could 
be best promoted. The English workingman had de- 
cided that the only hope lay in the People's Charter. 
The natural sequence was that Chartism was therefore 
divine and ordained of God. 4 " Study the New Testa- 
Stephens, Sermon on Kennington Common (London, 1839), P- 20. 
2 Solly, James Woodford, i, 213. 
3 Ibid., i, 237, 238. 
* Chartist Circular, preface, iv ; pp. 1, 5, 9, 32, 197. 



22 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [486 

ment — it contains the elements of Chartism," exhorted 
one paper. 1 The conception of the connection between 
the question of the franchise and Christianity not only 
took strong hold of the workingman, but it was one 
influence, if not the chief one, in winning for the Chart- 
ists what little aid they received from the middle classes. 
It was the actuating motive of the so-called "political 
preachers," like Stephens, Spencer and Parsons and 
furnished the ordinary theme for the sermons of the 
Christian Chartist Churches. Joseph Sturge, the leader 
of the Complete Suffrage movement, the single concerted 
middle-class effort in behalf of the Charter, was brought 
to take an active part through this influence. " It is a 
distinguishing and beautiful feature of Christianity," said 
he, " that it leads us to recognize every country as our 
country, and every man as our brother ; and as there is 
no moral degradation so awful, no physical misery so 
great as that inflicted by personal slavery, I have felt 
it my duty to labour for its universal extinction." 2 
"Nothing is more certain," says his biographer, "than 
that what was called the Chartism of Joseph Sturge 
sprung directly from his Christianity." 3 It was also the 
keynote of the work of Edward Miall in his editorials 
on universal suffrage. The address of the " Council of 
the National Complete Suffrage Association to Political 
Reformers ot all Shades of Opinion, " calling upon them 
in September, 1842, to elect representatives to a conven- 
tion, is remarkable in that it acts under " that great 
Christian obligation " which " calls upon all men to 
assist in freeing their brethren from the powers of the op- 

1 Chartist Circular, p. 222. 

2 Richard, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge (London, 1864), p. 299. 
3 Ibid., p. 325- 



4 g 7 ] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 23 

pression " and addresses them as " men and Christians," 
desiring- not to arouse their passions but simply to 
" awake the nobler feelings of justice, humanity and 
Christian duty" ' 

But the Chartists approached the fact that universal 
suffrage was based " on the revealed word of God " 2 from 
still another angle. They attempted to prove the " di- 
vine origin of liberty " from the laws of nature as ordained 
by God, and sought to prove from the Scriptures that 
" a simple democracy was the only order of government " 
instituted by God. 3 As expressed on one of their banners : 
" Every man is born free: God has given to all men equal 
rights and equal liberties." 4 

Neither of these conceptions was original. The belief 
in the divine origin of liberty was much older than Chart- 
ism, while the idea of finding a basis for political beliefs 
in Christianity of course was not confined to the Chart- 
ists. Quotations from the Bible furnished to their op- 
ponents some strong weapons. 

B. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS 

Having convinced themselves that democracy was 
ordained of God, and that loving one's neighbors as 
oneself was vitally connected with political justice, it 
seemed to the Chartist that the professing Christian was 
in duty bound to do his utmost to advance his cause. If 
it was the duty of Christian laymen to aid in the political 
emancipation of the proletariat, in a how much greater 
degree was it the business of their leaders, the clergy 
and pastors, the recognized expounders of the truths of 
Christianity ! 

1 Lovett, Lite and Struggles, p. 276, et. seq. 

2 Chartist Circular, p. 9. s Ibid., p. 1. 
4 Dolleans, Le Chartisme (Paris, 1912), ii, 466. 



24 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [ 4 88 

But this view again brought them into direct antago- 
nism with the church. The simple process of reasoning 
which carried the Chartists to their conclusion as to the 
duty of a Christian had no weight with the latter in 
regard to political matters. A peculiar and widely held 
doctrine had taken hold of early nineteenth-century 
Christianity in England to the effect that it was " wrong 
for a Christian to meddle in political matters." 1 To 
concern oneself with politics was almost sure to result 
in contamination and was always fraught with danger to 
the spiritual welfare of the participant. 2 All of the de- 
nominations were particularly careful to disavow any 
political affiliation and he who was least concerned with 
the "affairs of this world" was considered the most 
saintly and worthy of emulation. To be indifferent to 
political interests was considered a mark of piety. 

Although this feeling that there was something antag- 
onistic between Christianity and politics was prevalent in 
all of the churches, it found its greatest exponents among 
the Wesleyan Methodists. 3 " It is no business of ours 
as ' men of God ' who have dedicated ourselves to a 
kingdom which ' is not of this world,' " affirmed the Con- 
ference of 1836, "to be very eager or prominent in 
drawing out these great principles to what we deem 
right political conclusions." 4 For a Methodist minister 
to engage in political controversy was to act " contrary 
to his peculiar calling and solemn engagements." 5 Even 
the Congregationalists, unencumbered, as were the Meth- 

1 Reformer s Almanac, p. 284. 

s Epistles from the Yearly Meetings of Friends, ii, 303, 332. 
3 Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 244 ; Davison, Life of the Venerable 
William Clowes (London, 1854), p. 241. 
4 Minutes, viii, 105. See also pp. 237, 242 ; x, 260. 
h Minutes, ii, 185. 



489] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 



*D 



odists, by conservative traditions, hastened in 1841 to 
disclaim any possible political affiliation or interest, after 
a session of the Congregationalist Union devoted largely 
to a discussion of this subject, 1 and the editor of the 
Congregationalist asserted that as regards the redress 
of civil grievances " Christian ministers have no especial 
concern, and Christian churches and congregations, as 
such, no proper concern at all." 2 The maintenance of 
Christian virtues, says the Yearly Conference of Friends, 
4< is much endangered by yielding to political excitement." 3 
Deeply grounded as was the feeling that the effect of 
politics was detrimental to religion, it was still not so 
strong but that most of the churches were willing to be 
contaminated a bit when their interests were seen to be 
endangered. The Established Church worked effectually 
through their representatives in the House of Lords and 
other innumerable avenues ; the Methodists maintained 
after 1803 a " Committee of Privileges," whose duty it 
was to look after those matters pertaining to the civil 
rights of their people, while after 1832 the dissenting 
churches had many friends in the Lower House. The 
political power of the Dissenters was never shown more 
effectively than in 1843 when they successfully opposed 
the educational clause in Lord Graham's Factory Bill. 
By the time of the Chartist period, however, the objec- 
tion to active political participation on the part of the 
clergy was beginning to break down. The Anti-Corn 
Law League succeeded in interesting several hundred 
ministers in their cause and in holding a conference of 
ministers of religion in Manchester on behalf of cheap 

1 Waddington, Congregational History 1800-1850 (London, 1878), p. 
553- 
*Ibid., p. 573- 
% Epistle From the Yearly Meetings of Friends, ii, 303. 



26 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [ 49 q 

grain. Ministers of all denominations participated, in- 
cluding even one each from the Established Church of 
Scotland and the Wesleyan Methodists. 1 

The viewpoint of the churches that political matters 
were not to be compared in importance to the things 
immediately pertaining to salvation 2 was not shared by 
the Chartists. Christianity was to them above all prac- 
tical, something that must be carried into every walk of 
life. Furthermore there was no possibility of divorcing 
it from political science. Thus Rev. William Hill, editor 
of the Northern Star, in a lecture said : 

Politics, then, is the science of human government. It is a 
science that teaches men their rights, and the best way of 
exercising: them, and, digging- deep into the foundation of this 
science, it may be considered as an essential but much neglected 
branch of Christian ethics. We are commanded, for example, 
to love our neighbors as ourselves ; this has usually been con- 
sidered as applying to our duty so far as the exercise of 
charity is concerned; but this command is universal in its 
application, whether as friend, Christian or citizen. A man 
may be devout as a Christian, faithful as a friend, but if as a 
citizen he claims rights for himself he refuses to confer upon 
others, he fails to fulfill the precept of Christ ; taking this view 
of politics what an important view does it give this subject, 
compared with the narrow, partizan ideas usually associated 
with the term. 3 

But the typical Chartist went through the evolution of 
mind similar to that described by the Rev. Joseph Bar- 
ker who said : 

'Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London, 1835), 
vol. i, pp. 233 et seq. 
1 Meth. Minutes, viii, 96. 
s The Life Boat, vol. i, no. 4. 



491 ] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 2 J 

Formerly I thought it wrong: for a Christian to meddle in 
political matters. Formerly I thought it the duty of Chris- 
tians to unite themselves together in churches, to shut them- 
selves out from the world, to constitute themselves a little 
exclusive world, and to confine their labours to the govern- 
ment of their little kingdom and to the increase of the num- 
bers of its subjects. I now think differently. I have no faith 
in church organizations. I believe it my duty to be a man ; 
to live and move in the world at large ; to battle with evil 
wherever I see it, and to aim at the annihilation af all corrupt 
institutions and at the establishment of all good, and gener- 
ous, and useful institutions in their places. 1 

The most striking attempt of the Chartists to associate 
politics and religion was in the Christian Chartist 
Churches, where Christianity and radical politics were 
brought together and believed to be inseparable. 2 But it 
was not confined to these. Solly tells of a friend of his, 
a Chartist lecturer by the name of Clarke, who on his 
tours alternated his political lectures with sermons. 3 

It was the attempt to associate Christianity with 
practical politics that was chiefly responsible for the 
great popularity of the few preachers who were willing 
to brave the storm of public abuse and calumny which 
was associated with the term " political preacher." The 
Rev. J. R. Stephens was the most famous of this class. 
The effect of his discourses upon the multitudes who, 
" after a week of toil would stand for hours, regardless 
of comfort and health, while the rain fell in torrents — to 
hear the exhortations fall from his lips" 4 — can hardly be 

1 Reformer s Almanac, p. 284. 

2 Vide infra, p. 42 et seq. 

3 Solly, These Eighty Years (London, 1893), vol. i, p. 385. 

4 Stephens, Sermon Preached on Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields 
(1839), introduction. 



2 8 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [492 

imagined. Gifted with great eloquence, his intense 
bitterness toward the factory system and the New Poor 
Law often led him into extravagant statements of the 
most inflammatory kind, 1 which, printed in the Northern 
Star and distributed in pamphlet form, gave to him an 
influence upon the Chartist movement in its early stages 
hardly exceeded by O'Connor himself. Another gifted 
preacher of this class was Eustace Giles, a prominent Bap- 
tist, who was spoken of as "one of the pioneers who 
believed that it is often needful to be political in order 
to give expression to one's religious convictions." 2 
The Rev. Thomas Spencer, Church of England clergyman, 
and the Rev. Henry Solly, Unitarian, both pamphleteers 
and preachers, the Rev. Joseph Barker and Rev. William 
Hill, editors and lecturers, were other political preachers 
who distinguished themselves in the Chartist movement. 
Many more, including such names as Edward Miall 
and James Scholefield, could be added to the list. The 
" political preacher," in the modern sense of the term, 
first came into prominence in the agitations incidental to 
the Anti-Corn Law and Chartist movements. 

III. ATTITUDE OF THE CHARTISTS TOWARD THE CHURCH AND 

CLERGY 

The bitterness of the Chartists towards the churches and 
clergy, especially those of the State Church, approached 
almost of unanimity. The periodical and pamphlet liter- 
ature and the reported speeches are full of the severest 
condemnation. The Established Church is described as 
" ungodly " and " plundering," 3 as " villainous," 4 as " old 

1 'Gammage, op. cit., p. 55 et seq. 

2| Carlile, Story of the English Baptists (London, 1905), p. 231. 

3 Reformer's Almanac, p. 19. * Reformer's Companion, p. 19.. 



493] A TTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 2 g 

mother hypocrisy," " hatch houses of fraud and hypocrisy " 
and " this country's neglected curse," * as a " superstitious 
Old Hog," " an administration of Atheism " and " a system 
of vile priestcraft, encouraged by the aristocracy, for the 
plunder of the church revenues, and for the keeping of the 
people in a state of ignorance and suitable slavery and 
debasement," 2 as " the most corrupt and oppressive in- 
stitution in Europe," 3 and as " one of the greatest bul- 
warks of despotism, and barriers of freedom in the annals 
of our country," whose " course has been one of mischief, 
cruelty and plunder." 4 The clergy are characterized by 
The People as " reckless perjured liars," " vile infernal 
cheats," " ministers of the Devil," " blasphemers of God," 
" teachers of fables," " preachers of licentiousness," " anti- 
christs." 5 McDouall refers to them as "infidels," "proud," 
" rapacious," " cruel," " ambitious," " fraudulent," and 
" hypocritical." 6 The Reformer's Companion calls them 
" vile," 7 and the Weekly Adviser "narrow souled, ignorant, 
unreasoning," and " a positive disgrace to English civiliza- 
tion, and the bitterest enemies of the people." 8 The 
National denounces them as " a sable society of gentlemen, 
wearing broad hats and deep garments ; who possess a great 
part of the wealth and power in the world, and would have 
all, as a reward for keeping mankind in decent ignorance 
and bondage." 9 

1 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 34. 

* Carlile, An Address to that Portion of the People of Great Britain 
and Ireland calling Themselves Reformers, on the Political Excitement 
of the Present Time, p. 6. 

s Leach, The Workingman's Argument in Favor of the Charter, p. 8. 

* Evenings with the People, p. 2. 5 The People, p. 10. 

6 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 149. Vide also Re- 
former's Companion, p. 19, and Reformer's Almanac, p. 19. 
' Reformer's Companion, p. 191. 

8 Weekly Adviser and Artizan's Companion, p. 161. 

9 The National, p. 241. 



3 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [494 

Although the dissenting churches were not the recipients 
of such wholesale and unqualified abuse as was the State 
Church they did not wholly escape. The Wesleyan Method- 
ists were in particularly bad favor among reformers. It 
was a simple matter for the radicals of that period to ac- 
count for the enmity of the Establishment but the fact that 
the Wesleyan Methodists, whose constituency was largely 
amongst the poorer classes, could steadfastly set their faces 
against all political reform was incomprehensible and called 
down the severest censure upon their administration and atti- 
tude. Gammage asserts " that if there is a body of men 
in England who are in the service and uphold the principles 
of despotism, that body is the Wesleyan Conference 'V 
which he describes as a " solemn hypocritical conclave." 2 
Barker characterized the " Methodist preachers as a body " 
as " afraid of liberty in all its forms " 3 and the denomina- 
tion as doing much harm by upholding the tyranny of the 
national government and " prejudicing its members against 
Reformers; against the advocates of truth and righteous- 
ness; and by representing the friends of truth, of justice, 
and of liberty, as infidels and anarchists." * Ebenezer 
Elliott, who never got over the fact that the Wesleyan 
Methodists were the only dissenting church which would not 
participate actively in the Anti-Corn Law agitation, cele- 
brated their degeneracy in rhyme. 5 

1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 55, 56. 2 Ibid., p. 56. 

3 The People, vol. ii, p. 33. 
* Reformer's Almanac, p. 370. 

5 " Ask ye if I, of Wesley's followers one, 

Abjure the home where Wesleyans bend the knee? 
I do — because the spirit thence is gone; 
And truth, and faith, and grace are not, with me, 
The Hundred Popes of England's Jesuitry." 

The Ranters, vol. i, p. 145 of the 1830 ed. of his poem?. 



4951 A TTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 3I 

The indictment formulated by the Chartists against the 
English clergy was a formidable one. They were, in the 
first place, accused of neglect of duty, especially as regards 
their poorer parishioners. 

We ask [said Stephens], whether the ministers of religion in 
these times of savage and relentless, of stiffhecked and auda- 
cious tyranny, have faithfully discharged the duties of their 
holy office? They have not. Instead of pleading the cause 
of the poor, they have joined the league against them. They 
have shared in the murderous assault and are dividing the 
spoil. 1 

It was maintained, in the second place, that the clergy neither 
taught the true Christianity nor exemplified it in their 
lives. O'Brien found " almost every doctrine of holy writ 
falsified " in their lives 2 while Carlile held that the church 
had " no authority for (its) present proceedings in the 
Bible." 3 Stephens affirmed that if the Gospel were " fairly, 
impartially, divinely preached in England for seven days, 
the end of the seventh day would behold the end of social 
tyranny as it afflicts the people." 4 Thirdly, the Chartists 
found the church and clergy hostile to reform and accused 
them of deliberately using their influence to retard progress 
and to keep the people in ignorance and superstition. 
Spencer, himself a Church of England clergyman, admitted 
that " all who advocate the removal of abuses are described 
as enemies of the church " and all political reformers, " find- 

1 The People's Magazine, p. 180, and vol. ii, p. 27. Vide also, Ste- 
phens, Sermon on Kennington Common, p. 25; Is There One Law for 
the Rich and One for the Poor, by a Workingman ; McDouall's Chartist 
and Republican Journal, p. 149. 

2 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 149. 
1 Carlile, Address, p. 6. 

* Stephens, Sermon Preached on Shepherd and Shepherdess Field, p. 6. 



32 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [496 

ing the church standing in the way of every reform, desire 
its removal in order that they may obtain an extension of 
the suffrage and a reformed Parliament, equitable taxation 
and just laws." * 

You uniformly prostitute religion to the maintenance of civil 
tyranny [said O'Brien in a letter to the Established Church 
parsons, and continued:] They (the people) see that holy writ 
abounds from one end of the volume to the other in denuncia- 
tion against usury and tyranny, and in threats of divine ven- 
geance against oppressors of all kinds, and yet in the teeth of 
these denunciations and solemn menaces, they behold you em- 
ploying all the power of your craft to bolster up the system. 2 

To maintain, as the Chartists did, that the clergy of 
England were remiss in their duty, that they did not preach 
Christianity, and that they were the upholders of tyranny 
was all very well, but the argument remained in the realm 
of uncertainty. On these points it was possible to have 
an honest difference of opinion. But the Chartists were 
equipped with a more telling and practical criticism. The 
unequal distribution of wealth in the Established Church, 
resulting in extraordinarily large incomes for the bishops 
and higher dignitaries and many sinecures, had been for 
years the constant theme of radical reformers, 3 Although 
the reforms of 6 and 7 William IV, Chapter JJ, had done 
something to remedy the evils, 4 the latter were still suffi- 
ciently glaring, and the Chartist periodicals never wearied 
of expatiating upon the princely incomes of the " servants 
of him who ' had not where to lay his head.' " 5 " For our- 

1 Spencer, The Pillars of the Church of England, p. ii. 
* McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 149. 

3 Stoughton, Religion in England (London, 1881-4), vol. viii, chap. i. 

4 Perry, History of the English Church, 3d Period, p. 233. 

5 The People, p. 21. 



497] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 33 

selves," says the Weekly Adviser, after giving a list of the 
bishops and their salaries, " we have no hesitation in saying 
that a highway robber is more worthy of honour than any 
one of the consecrated hypocrites named." 1 The estimated 
nine million pounds income per annum 2 of the Established 
Church was looked upon as little less than robbery and the 
Church was called by one paper, " The Pious Pickpocket." 3 
"Are you not paying too much for your whistle?" asks 
another. 4 A third paper, after stating that a bishop in a 
twelvemonth did but a tithe of the duties, judged on a 
basis of utility, done in a single day by the humblest work- 
man in its own office, cries : " How long is all this to last? " 5 

IV. PROGRAM OF THE CHARTISTS IN RESPECT TO THE CHURCH 

The attitude of the Chartists towards the church early 
crystallized into a more or less definite program. There 
must be, first of all, an absolute separation of church and state. 
On this point there was scarcely a difference of opinion. 
Cooper, Lovett, Barker, O'Brien and practically all the rest 
of the leaders believed this thoroughly. Among the Chart- 
ist papers which strongly advocated it are to be numbered, 
The Weekly Adviser? The Model Republic, Power of 
Pence, The People, 7 The Reformer* The Divinearian, The 
English Republic, 9 Cooper's Journal, 10 Bronterre's National 

1 June 10, 1852, p. 12. 

2 Lovett, op, cit., p. 266. 

s The Weekly Adviser, June 10, 1852, p. 12. 

* The Model Republic, p. 64. 1 

5 Power of Pence, p. 49 (Dec. 2, 1848) . 

6 The Weekly Adviser, p. 2. 

7 The People, p. 1. 

8 The Reformer, p. 1. 

9 The English Republic, p. 86, 
10 Cooper's Journal, p. 143. 



34 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [498 

Reformer, 1 McDouccll's Chartist and Republican Journal 
and many more, including The N on-con formist. 2 In con- 
junction with the severance of church and state the voluntary 
principle must be introduced. "If the preacher must be paid," 
said Ernest Jones, " let him be paid what he is worth and 
if he is worthless let him not be paid at all." 3 Voluntary- 
ism should be accompanied by the abolition of the hated 
church tithes, the idea of supporting a church whose doc- 
trines they detested being especially abhorrent to the Chart- 
ists. 4 An absolute cessation of persecution with complete 
toleration on the part of the government to all religious 
sects was of course an integral part of all reform. 5 

The radical doctrines with respect to church reform, 
which had been informally set forth many times, 6 were 
finally given official sanction at the Convention of 1851, 
when the following propositions were recommended : 

1st. Complete separation of church and state. 

2nd. All church temporalities to be declared national prop- 
erty, except such individual endowments as have been volun- 
tarily and legally made. 

All ecclesiastical buildings, the cost of which can be clearly 
shown to have been defrayed from national funds, to belong to 
the state. The persuasion now using these edifices to continue 
in the enjoyment of them on equitable conditions. 

3rd. Tithes and church rates to be abolished. 

1 Bronterre's National Reformer, Sat., Jan. 15, 1837, p. 61. 
1 Miall, Life of Edward Miall, pp. 50 et seq. 
s Evenings with the People, p. 28. 

* The Radical Reformers of England, Scotland and Wales to the 
Irish People, p. 2 (written by Lovett) ; also The Weekly Adviser, p. 2. 

* Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 320 ; also The People's Charter by the 
Author of The Reformer Catechised, etc., pp. 47, 48. 

* For the best examples, see ibid., pp. 47, 48, and Bronterre's National 
Reformer for Sat., Jan. 15, 1837, P- *'!• 



499] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 35 

4th. The state not to interfere with the national policy 
of any church. All ecclesiastics to be appointed in any way 
their respective congregations think fit, and to be paid volun- 
tarily by the congregations that employ their services. 

5th. Ecclesiastical licences for the purpose of education 
unnecessary. 1 

V. VISITS TO THE CHURCHES 

The protests of the Chartists against the attitude of the 
Established, and other churches were not confined to press 
or platform denunciation. During the severe government 
prosecutions of 1839, when the Chartists found their right of 
public meeting infringed upon, they adopted the method of 
assembling on the Sabbath and attending the parish churches 
in a body for the double purpose of displaying their num- 
bers 2 and of registering their dissatisfaction at the position 
assumed by the church. 

In the midsummer of 1839 this procedure seems to 
have been especially popular. In July of that year the 
Chartists at Newcastle " went in a body and filled St. 
Nicholas church during divine service, to the great annoy- 
ance of the regular attendance." 3 On August 4th a body 
" estimated at 1,500 formed in procession and made their 
way to Stockport church; and immediately on the doors 
being opened, took complete possession of the edifice." 
On the same day about 4,000 visited the church at Black- 
burn. 5 The next Sunday at Bolton, " Having met in the 
New Marketplace, to the number of 3,000 or 4,000, at an 
early hour, they proceeded at half-past nine o'clock, in 

1 Notes to the People, vol. i, p. 133; Gammage, op. cit., p. 371. 
s Gammage, op. cit., p. 153. 

3 Ibid., p. 149. 

4 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xii, p. 301. 

5 A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church, Blackburn, Sunday, Au- 
gust 4th, 1839, by the Rev. J. W. Whittaker, D. D., p. 13. 



36 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [500 

processional order, six abreast, and in a few minutes com- 
pletely filled the church." x About 500 men in the same 
way on that day went to St. Paul's Cathedral. 2 On August 
18th Pastor Close preached to the Chartists at Cheltenham 3 
and on the next Sunday addressed the Female Chartists of 
the same place. 4 On November 17th Rev. Evan Jenkins of 
Dowlais received a similar visit. These visits were only a 
few of the actual number made; for the idea, as Disraeli 
said, had much affected the imagination of the multitude. 5 

The Chartists usually gave previous intimation to the 
clergy of their intention, 6 recommending them to preach 
from such texts as, " The husband-man that laboureth shall 
be the first partaker of the fruits," " He who will not work 
shall not eat," etc. 7 The clergy however 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xii, p. 301. 2 Ibid. 

s 'Close, A Sermon Addressed to the Chartists of Cheltenham. 

* Close, A Sermon Addressed to the Female Chartists of Cheltenham. 
Rev. Francis Close was one of the leading Evangelicals of that period. 
An historian of that party, in speaking of him, says: "The latter 
ranked with Stowell and McNeile as one of the orators of the party, 
and he ruled Cheltenham from his pulpit throne to such an extent that 
the wits described it as ' a Close borough '. He fought the local magis- 
trates and stopped the races. No meeting could be held without his 
permission. ' He was the Pope of Cheltenham,' said The Times, ' with 
pontifical prerogatives from which the temporal had not been severed. 
In the bosoms of hundreds and thousands of householders his social 
decrees were accepted without the thought of the possibility of oppo- 
sition. If a popular preacher is to be presented with a scepter, it may 
be admitted that none could have held it more judiciously or more 
uprightly'." Balleine, G. R., A History of the Evangelical Party (Lon- 
don, 1908), p. 205. The two sermons mentioned here were both strong 
denunciations of Chartism and called forth in reply two editorial lead- 
ers in the Chartist Circular. Vide vol. i, pp. 193, 205. 

5 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 375. 

Gammage, op. cit., p. 153; Whittaker, op. cit., p. 13; Close, Female 
Chartists, p. 1. 

7 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153. 



501] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 37 

chose rather to preach upon passive obedience, and the folly 
of looking to the things of this life; a doctrine which only 
served to exasperate their hearers, who could not always be 
restrained from expressing their indignant feelings at the 
hypocrisy of the men who could preach this doctrine, while 
they were themselves in the enjoyment of every luxury. 1 

On one occasion 

one clergyman so far forgot discretion and good feeling as to 
display his wit in taking for his text, " My house shall be called 
the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." 
The Chartists quitted the church in a body upon its announce- 
ment; and thus far he triumphed; but he lost an excellent 
opportunity of addressing to them what might have benefited 
their souls. 2 

An excellent example of the sermons preached is the 
discourse of Dr. Whittaker to the Chartists at Blackburn. 
The latter requested that he preach from the first two verses 
of James v, " Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your 
miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are cor- 
rupted, and your garments are moth-eaten." The clergy- 
man complied with their request, and while admitting that 
these words might have fitted the old Romans, asserted that 
to apply them to the modern rich would be " the height of in- 
justice and the grossest falsehood" and an "act of flagrant 
false witness." Especially would this accusation be untrue 
of England, a land " governed by equal laws, where civil 
rights and public guarantees of liberty are secured too firmly 
to be shaken except by those who enjoy their benefit." 3 
Then, leaving the text, he exhorted the people to " meekness 

1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153. 

J Christian Observer, 1839, p. 574. 

8 Whittaker, op. cit., p. 9. 



38 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [502 

and endurance " and to submission and obedience to the 
powers that be, using Romans xiii, 1-7 and I Peter ii, 13-17 
to bolster up his contentions. Then followed the usual 
tirade against Chartism and the customary confusion be- 
tween it and infidelity, and it and socialism. 

The clergy had the courage of their convictions as well 
as the Chartists. Whittaker coolly told a crowd of 4,000 
that there were only 100 Chartists amongst them, the rest 
being simply a promiscuous crowd attracted by the public 
method thus used to gain notoriety. 1 Close, in his sermon, 
said that this mode of approach to the house of God was 
" particularly offensive to the Almighty." 2 " Nothing," 
said he, " is more calculated to raise the country against 
them or to awaken the feelings of any man who has any 
regard for religious decency." 3 The Christian Observer 
called it a " mockery of divine worship " and a proceeding 
obviously offensive to all classes of the community. 4 It 
maintained that it was absurd to say that the Chartists had as 
much right to go to church as other people if they proceeded 
thither in an orderly manner. To allow " peaceful and 
devout worshippers to be put to flight by a revolutionary 
mob " was to obscure true liberty in technical phrases. 5 

Although the Chartists listened in many cases submissively 
enough to the abuses heaped upon them, for which in a 
measure they had themselves to blame, having put them- 
selves in a position to receive them, disturbances ensued quite 
often 6 and arrests became so frequent that a defense fund 

1 Whittaker, op. cit., p. 13. 

s Sermon to the Chartists, p. 18. 

* Close, Female Chartists, p. 22. 

* Christian Observer, 1839, p. 573. 

5 Ibid., p. 573. For anti-Chartist sermons, vide infra, p. 60 et seq. 
9 Chartists tried to break up the meetings of Rev. Norman McLeod. 
McLeod, Life of Norman McLeod (Toronto, 1876), p. 84. 



5°3] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 39 

was organized, and collectors were appointed in different 
towns to raise subscriptions for the purpose. 1 

One of the most serious disturbances of this nature oc- 
curred at Norwich in November 1841 at the dedication of 
a new church. The Chartists, thinking this an excellent 
opportunity for a turn-out, paraded the streets with a band 
and many banners and proceeded to the church, which they 
intended to fill to the exclusion of every one else. The 
police, however, prevented this, but left the Chartists to 
obstruct the passage of other people who desired entrance. 
When the bishop arrived he had to be literally conveyed 
into the churchyard in the center of a body of police. Dur- 
ing the preaching service the Chartist band played outside 
on the road to the great annoyance of those within. " Once 
or twice, the door being opened with a noise, the whole 
congregation rose in alarm for some minutes during the 
service." While the sermon was being preached four of 
the Chartists were taken into custody, a rescue was at- 
tempted and during a sharp riot in which several of the 
police were severely injured, one regained his freedom. 
During the consecration exercises, Hewitt, a prominent 
Chartist of that region, came up at the head of a band 
playing " God Save the Queen " and, making a halt in 
front of the church, played " Old Hundredth." The mayor 
and superintendent of police having apprehended Hewitt, a 
general rush took place in which three more Chartists were 
handcuffed and driven to the station house, the crowd fol- 
lowing and threatening to pull down the prison. The 
prisoners were heavily fined and, in default of payment, com- 
mitted to prison at hard labor. Hewitt was bound over to 
take his trial at the sessions. 2 

1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153. 

2 Anti-Socialist Gazette, no. 3, p. 36, Dec. 1841. 



4 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [504 

The Chartists, of course, did not confine their operations 
entirely to the churches. Frequently they succeeded in 
monopolizing public meetings by electing their own chair- 
man and diverting the assemblies from their original pur- 
pose. In particular they proved a thorn in the side of the 
Anti-Corn Law Leaguers, whose meetings were time and 
time again broken up by the Chartists. Their procedure 
was either to elect a chairman and occupy the time with 
their own speakers or else offer an amendment to the free- 
trade resolution in favor of the Charter. 1 

One of the most interesting instances of this practice 
occurred in December 1839 at Carlisle. A meeting was 
called at the Coffee House by some of the leading clergy 
and evangelical gentlemen, 

the object of which was a " better observance of the Sabbath." 
Previous to the hour appointed the room was crowded with 
Chartists, and the original proposers of the meeting were hardly 
able to obtain a standing place. Nevertheless they com- 
menced business by moving that Mr. Graham of Edmund- 
castle be called to the chair. This was met by an amendment 
that Hall, one of their own body and keeper of a pothouse in 
Butchergate, be elected chairman, which was carried by ac- 
clamation. The gentlemen now endeavored to retreat, but their 
escape was prevented, by a crowd of Chartists on every side, 
and they were ultimately prevailed upon to remain by an as- 
surance from the chairman that order would be preserved, and 
every one should have a fair and patient hearing. So, indeed, 
they had — the evangelicals made their speeches, and Dr. Taylor 
replied in a strain of irony and abuse, full of that Chartist elo- 
quence for which he is so remarkable. Then Julian Hardy 
and Cardo, and other members of the convention made their 
speeches, and carried two resolutions, directly opposed to the 

1 Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol. i, p. 192; 
Memoranda of the Chartist Agitation in Dundee, p. 28; Gammage, 
op. cit.. p. 102. 



5°5] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 4I 

purpose for which the meeting was convened. They then 
passed a vote of thanks to the gentlemen for their kindness 
in procuring the use of the room ; saying that they had always 
before been unsuccessful in their application for it; and con- 
cluded by making a subscription for the patriot Frost, as they 
styled him. 1 

As a means of advertisement this method was undoubt- 
edly a success. As a means of protest it may have accom- 
plished something, but in the actual promotion of the cause 
of the People's Charter it is probable that these interruptions 
did more harm than good, arousing and strengthening, as 
they did, the prejudices of large numbers of people. 

1 The Chartist Correspondence, p. 8. 



CHAPTER II 

Chartist Substitutions for the Prevailing 
Christianity 

I. CHRISTIAN chartist churches 

Of all the methods used by the Chartists to identify their 
movement with Christianity there was none more striking 
than the organization of the " Christian Chartist Churches." 
Disgusted with both the State and Dissenting churches for 
the lack of sympathy evinced by them toward their cause 
and convinced that neither was representing the true primi- 
tive Christianity as taught by Christ, they attempted to fill 
the gap; and, following the example of many before and 
since under similar circumstances, they started churches 
of their own. 

At least three influences were at work upon the Chartists 
to induce them to organize these churches. In the first 
place there was the desire to draw the people away from 
the influence of the old churches, which were rightly judged 
to be hostile to their projects. " Were the Chartists to do 
this," said the Circular in regard to the founding of inde- 
pendent churches, " ecclesiastical tyranny would soon die a 
natural death, and clerical domination be banished from 
our land. One great obstacle to the onward progress of the 
present movement would thus be put out of the way." x 
In the second place there was the wish to repudiate and dis- 
prove by some active move on their part the " ecclesiastical 

1 Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 129. 
42 [506 



5 o;] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 43 

bellowing about Chartist infidelity." 1 Lastly there was 
undoubtedly a sincere longing to get back to fundamental 
principles and practices. 2 

These churches, or, as Stephens calls them, " politico- 
religious societies," 3 seem to have taken their rise in Scot- 
land in the spring of 1840, 4 perhaps at the suggestion, 5 at 
any rate with the enthusiastic backing 6 of the Chartist 
Circular, the official publication of the Scotch Chartists. 7 
This publication in its number for May 2, 1840, prints an 
extract from the first Chartist sermon preached in Scotland, 
the text being taken from the Sermon on the Mount : " Be- 
ware of false prophets," etc. The idea evidently appealed 
to the people, for its success was instantaneous. In 
August, 1840, the same paper announced enthusiastically 8 
that " they have now planted their humble places of worship 
in almost every corner of the land ", while a year later 
Stephens with a little more conservatism testified to their 
increase. 

What is most worthy of remark in the establishment of 
these new religious societies [said he], is that they have 
sprung up here and there from Scotland down to the 
South of England, in the absence of any previously ar- 
ranged plan for their formation, and without the assistance 
of any missionary or proselyte-maker acting as the agent of 
some distant " parent society." They are not " branches " 
or " auxiliaries " worked from a center but separate fellow- 

1 Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 197. 

2 Ibid., p. 222 ; Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, pp. 89 et seq. 

3 The People's Magazine, May, 1841, pp. 159 et seq. 
* Chart. Cir., vol. i, p. 129. 

5 Ibid., p. no. 

8 Ibid., pp. no, 129, 197, 222, 226, 374. 

1 Ibid., Introduction. 

8 Ibid., p. 197. 



44 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [508 

ships of the weighty and strong-minded people, who now 
begin in good earnest to ask what is the will of God in these 
things that belong as well to their earthly as to their heavenly 
weal. 1 

Following the successful operation of many of these churches 
in Scotland the idea was taken up in England where it was 
probably introduced by Arthur O'Neill, 2 a member of the 
first Central Committee of Scotland, 3 who established in 
Birmingham the most famous of the Christian Chartist 
Churches, 4 and also preached in many others. 5 

The services were held in private houses, schools, public 
halls, — any place where a group of people could gather. 
In West Bromwich, England, one of the iron masters him- 
self lent O'Neill a large room. 6 In these places lay preach- 
ers, chosen from amongst the local societies, or Chartist 
" missionaries," absolutely without pay, held forth on 
politico-religious subjects 7 and administered the rites of 
baptism and the Lord's Supper and, in Scotland, marriage. 8 
The usual method of procedure was to pick out some ap- 
propriate text from the Bible after the manner of a sermon, 
and with that as a starting point launch into a discussion 
of political and economic problems attempting to find 
the solution in the teachings of Christianity. 9 According 

1 The People's Magazine, p. 159. 
s Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 89. 
3 Chart. Cir., preface. 

* Gammage, op. cit., p. 106; Solly, op. cit., pp. 89 et seq.; .Solly, These 
Eighty Years, vol. ii, p. 222. 

5 Parliamentary Reports, 1843, vol. xiii, Report of the Midland Min- 
ing Commission, paragraphs 608 et seq. 

6 Report of the Midland Mining Commission, par. 608. 
' The People's Magazine, pp. 159, 160. 

8 Chart. Cir., pp. no, 222, 226, 374. 

9 Midland Mining Commission, par. 610. 



509] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 45 

to the testimony of Mr. Slater, a Wesleyan minister who 
calls the mild-mannered and earnest O'Neill " the wretch ", x 
the latter introduced into his sermon " unmeasured abuse 
of Her Majesty and the Constitution, about the public ex- 
penditure, and complete radical doctrines of all kinds." 2 
The Chartists had their own hymnbooks which they used 
at these services. 2 

The congregations were, of course, made up almost en- 
tirely of workingmen, s who were, in Birmingham, largely 
Baptist and Methodist. 4 The English operatives and col- 
liers, when they were anything, were mostly members of 
these two denominations and it was principally from them 
that the membership of the Chartist Churches was recruited. 
This may explain to some extent the hostility of the 
Methodists. 

Both Churchmen and Dissenters combined to condemn 
these attempts to return to primitive Christianity, 5 or, to 
put it in their language, an attempt to set up " pretended 
churches, and proceeding to dispense pretended sacraments, 
on the ground of a political creed." 6 The opposition was 
due partially to loss of membership, but, especially in the case 
of the State Church, also to a conflict in theory of or- 
ganization and polity, a church depending entirely upon 
lay preachers being hardly likely to commend itself to a 

1 Midland Mining Commission, par. 479. 
1 Ibid., par. 608. 

3 The People's Magazine, May, 1841, p. 159. 

4 Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 90. 

* Mid. Min. Com., par. 608 et seq.; English Review, vol. i, p. 70; 
Christian Remembrancer, vol. v, p. 737; British Critic, vol. xxvii, pp. 
340, 34i. 

4 Marshall, The Duty of Attempting to Reconcile the Unenfranchised 
with the Enfranchised Class, p. 12. 



4 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [ 51< > 

priesthood claiming an uninterrupted succession from the 
Apostles. 1 

Yet these same critics admitted the success of the Chart- 
ist Churches, although seeking to explain it by the reli- 
gious rather than the political element in their activities. 2 
Mr. Slater testified that at West Bromwich the Chartists 
had a large room " which used to be crowded to suffocation 
every Sabbath afternoon from half -past two to a quarter 
past four." 3 In Birmingham by the assiduous pursuit 
of all Christian duties the Chartist Church was able to 
live down so far the obloquy of its origin even among the 
wealthy classes as actually to obtain contributions from them 
for its work. 4 

II. EDUCATION 

If the Chartists were dissatisfied with the social program 
of the churches in England their criticism was not of a 
merely negative character. To take the place of what they 
considered the neglect of the church they formulated a more 
or less distinct plan for intellectual and social betterment. 
In this program the education of the masses occupied the 
foremost place. According to Lovett the aim of Chartism 
was " to purify the heart and rectify the conduct of all, by 
knowledge, morality, and love of freedom." 5 While the 
churches in England were squabbling as to who should con- 
trol education, the Chartists stood out unequivocally for 
secular education. 6 The Chartists instinctively felt that the 

1 Chart. Cir., vol. i, pp. 374, 222. 

2 English Review, vol. i, p. 70 ; M id. Min. Com., par. 608 et seq. 
a Mid. Min. Com., par. 608. 

4 Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 90; Solly, These Eighty Years t 
vol. i, p. 383. 

5 Lovett and Collins, Chartism, Introduction, p. 9. 

6 Weekly Adviser, vol. i, p. 2; Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 72; Lovett,, 
Life and Struggles, pp. 141, 145, 326. 



c IX ] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 47 

churches were more interested in the brand of religion that 
was to be imparted to the children of the working classes 
than either the quality of the instruction or the truthful- 
ness of the knowledge. 1 Even such a representative paper 
as The Chartist Circular, which is pervaded with a decidedly 
Christian tone, bitterly denounces the education in vogue. 

There is no tyranny so paralyzing to the public mind [it says], 
as the despotism of priestcraft. Wherever an established 
priesthood has existed, the people have been mentally and poli- 
tically enslaved; and, if philosophy at any time has triumphed 
over superstition it was after long and bitter struggle with 
bigotry, intolerance, and selfishness of ignorant priests. If you 
read the history of priestcraft in the dark ages, you will re- 
spond to my opinions. Priests have never encouraged the 
people to study the truths of natural philosophy, or political 
science ; nor have they taught them to understand and demand 
their civil, religious and natural rights. 2 

The English working class became first thoroughly 
aroused on the subject of education about 1830 when the 
agitation for an " Unstamped Press " became loud and per- 
sistent. 3 In this fight to remove the " tax on knowledge," 
as it was called, Henry Hetherington and John Cleave took 
the leading part, 4 while their efforts were ably seconded 
by such men as James Watson, William Lovett, and Bron- 
terre O'Brien. The connection of the unstamped press 
fight with the Chartist movement is easy to trace. It was 
Hetherington, Cleave, Watson and Lovett who were later 
the heart and soul first of " The National Union of the 

1 Lovett, op. cit., p. 135. 

2 Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 72; also pp. 39, 4°, 59; Kingsley, Alton 
Locke, p. 47. 

3 Lovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 54 et seq. 

4 Ibid., pp. 54, 91- 



4 8 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [e I2 

Working Classes and Others", 1 then of "The London 
Working Men's Association," which fathered the Charter. 
It is interesting to note that of the six men appointed to 
represent the Working Men's Association in drawing up the 
Charter, three of them — Hetherington, Watson and Cleave 
— had suffered imprisonment more than once in the cause 
of an untaxed press- 2 Of the other three, Lovett was then 
prominently active, Moore later defended the same proposi- 
tion, 3 while Vincent was still too young to be conspicuous. 
Lovett was actually engaged in educational efforts as 
early as 1829, when he drew up a " petition for the opening 
of the British Museum, and other exhibitions of Art and 
Nature, on Sundays." 4 In 183 1 the National Union of the 
Working Classes and Others, which stood for universal 
manhood suffrage, did valiant service for the unstamped 
press, convinced as it was that " the wide spread poverty, the 
drunkenness, vices, and crimes of society were clearly traced 
to the absence of mental and moral light." 5 The London 
Workingmen's Association, founded in 1836, which launched 
the People's Charter, had also as its objects: 

To devise every possible means, and to use every exertion, 
to remove those cruel laws that prevent the free circulation of 
thought through the medium of a cheap and honest press. 

To promote by all available means the education of the 
rising generation and the extirpation of those systems which 
tend to future slavery. 

To form a library of reference and useful information, etc. 6 

1 Lovett, op. cit., pp. 68 et seq. 

3 Ibid., p. 62. 

3 Ibid., p. 89. 

* Ibid., p. 57. ■■! 

5 Ibid., p. 134. 

6 Ibid., p. 93. '••..."'' • 



5I3 ] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY ^g 

The connection between education and Chartism prior 
to 1838 is thus clearly seen. But even in the heat of the 
Chartist agitation the educational side was not forgotten. 
It was continually kept in mind by the little group of 
London agitators and taken up with enthusiasm in many 
sections. The Weekly Adviser pledges itself to " advocate 
the establishment of a national system of education on purely 
secular grounds," * The Reformer says that " Popular edu- 
cation will occupy a large share of our attention ", 2 while 
the Chartist Circular strongly urges upon the Scotch Chart- 
ists the advisability of forming schools, 3 Feargus 
O'Connor, who could not bear to see anything prosper which 
he did not originate and who represented the worst element 
of the movement, dubbed the educational efforts of Lovett 
and his friends " knowledge Chartism " and through his 
great influence was able to do them much harm. 4 

While imprisoned in Warwick Gaol, Lovett occupied him- 
self with writing a little work entitled Chartism, or a New 
Organization of the People, which was published under 
the joint names of Lovett and Collins when they were re- 
leased. In the words of Lovett : 

The chief object of this work was to induce the Chartists of 
the United Kingdom to form themselves into a National As- 
sociation for the erection of halls and schools of various kinds 
for the purpose of education — for the establishment of li- 
braries ; the printing of tracts ; and the sending out of mission- 
aries ; with the view of forming an enlightened public opinion 
throughout the country in favor of the Charter, and thus better 

1 Weekly Advise? wdI. i, p. 2. 

2 The Reformer, p. 1. 

3 Chartist Circular, p. 40. 

4 Lovett, op. cit., pp. 250, 251 ; Gammage, op. cit., p. 196. 



5 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [5x4 

preparing the people for the exercise of the political rights 
we are contending for. 1 

Lovett had figured out that if each person who signed 
the National Petition would contribute even less than 
a penny a week, in one year eighty schools at £3,000 
each could be erected, equipped with playground, pleas- 
ure gardens, museums, laboratories, workshops and baths, 
where lectures, readings, discussions, musical entertain- 
ments and dances could be held; 710 circulating 
libraries at £20 each started; 4 missionaries at £200 per 
annum employed and 20,000 tracts per week distributed. 2 
Not a mere cultivation of the intellect but a " judicious de- 
velopment of all their qualities " 3 was the object sought. 
The publication of Chartism was shortly followed by 
an address " To the Political and Social Reformers 
of the United Kingdom," signed by eighty-one of the 
leading radicals of Great Britain, including Collins, 
Hetherington, Cleave and Mitchell of London, urging the 
formation of a " National Association of the United King- 
dom " 4 to carry out the projects embraced in the pamphlet 
of Lovett and Collins. " There was in this plan," says 
Gammage, " all the elements of the people's regeneration, 
supposing it to be faithfully and honestly carried out." 5 

Although there was no intention on the part of the pro- 
moters to' oppose associations already formed, 6 the project 
met the bitterest opposition from O'Connor 7 and made 
but little headway in the provinces. It led in London, 
however, to the formation of a body known as " The Lon- 
don Members of the National Association," the first two 
i. ; ; 

1 Lovett, op. cit., p. 236. 2 Ibid., p. 249, 250. 

3 Ibid., p. 143. 4 Ibid., pp. 232, 236, 249. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 196. 6 Lovett, op. cit., p. 248. 
7 Ibid., pp. 251, 255. 



515] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY $i 

secretaries of which were Henry Hetherington and Charles 
Westerton. A weekly periodical, The National Association 
Gazette, was issued by the society 1 while in 1842 a building 
was rented, in which a library was installed, courses of lec- 
tures were delivered, music and dancing classes organized 
and in 1843 a Sunday School started. 2 A day school was 
finally established in 1848 through the generosity of a 
friend. 3 

The Chartists put themselves officially on record in 185 1 
when in the convention of that year they carried a pro- 
position which " laid down the principle of national, secular, 
gratuitous, compulsory education." 4 

Important as was the work of the London, radicals in the 
field of education, it was not to be compared in extent to the 
salutary effect on the intellectual life of the English pro- 
letariat of the great number of cheap Chartist periodicals 
which sprang up all over England during these years, the 
literary standard of which, everything considered, was re- 
markably high. It should also 1 be noticed here that Joseph 
Barker was the editor and publisher of Barker's Library of 
three hundred volumes on religious, political and ethical 
subjects, which were up to that time the cheapest collec- 
tion ever published. Indeed he is credited with being the 
originator of cheap literature in England. 5 Nor is the work 
on the lecture platform of W. J. Fox, Thomas Cooper, 
William Lovett, Henry Vincent, Robert Lowery and many 
others, covering a long period of years, to be forgotten. The 
purely educational effect of this alone was considerable. 

1 Lovett, op. clt., p. 259. 

2 Ibid., pp. 287, 288. 
s Ibid., p. 334. 
4, Gammage, op. cit., p. 371. 

5 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Hi, pp. 205 et seq. This 
may be true of nineteenth-century literature, but Wesley was a pioneer 
in this field of the eighteenth. New History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 220. 



^2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [516 

III. TEMPERANCE AND TEETOTALISM 

Chartism ought not to be considered entirely as a political 
movement; it contained too many elements which looked to 
the moral regeneration of the working classes. Next in 
importance to its educational phase must be reckoned its 
endeavor to inculcate habits of temperance and even tee- 
totalism. 

At least three motives contributed to bring the question 
of temperance to the front. There was in the first place an 
earnest desire on the part of many of the leaders of the 
working class to rescue their followers from the demoraliz- 
ing effects on health and morals of a habit whose influence 
could be only too plainly seen. 1 The time and energy con- 
sumed and the money wasted in drink were a decided im- 
pediment to an efficient agitation for political rights, 2 while 
the ignorance and crime engendered by the excessive use of 
alcohol gave some ground for the accusation so often made, 
that the lower classes were unprepared to exercise the 
franchise. Last of all the Chartists believed that not only 
did drink help to enslave them politically by debasing them 
morally, but that the excise duties on liquor and tobacco 
actually furnished sinews of war to their oppressors. 3 The 
loss of revenue to the treasury which would result from 
abstinence on the part of the working classes from excisable 
articles would in the minds of many Chartists be of sufficient 
importance to " bring the misrule of our government to an 
end." 4 " We shall never get our rights," says Devildust, 
whom Disraeli pictures as an especially keen Chartist of the 
ranks, " till we leave off consuming excisable articles." 

1 Lovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 57, 95 ; Eng. Chart. Cir., pp. 6, 23, 35, 
etc.; Alton Locke, p. 84. 

2 Eng. Chart. Cir., pp. 35, 46. 

3 Ibid., pp. 6, 35, 40, 42, etc. 

i Reformer's Almanac, p. 238. 5 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 115. 



517] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 53 

Vincent, the Chartist whose name above all others is 
connected with the temperance agitation, sums the whole 
matter up when he concludes his "Address to the Working 
Man " with the following words : 

By adopting this course, the habits of the people will be at 
once changed. New hopes and new desires will be awakened 
in the breasts of millions — intellect will start forth to dispute 
the arrogant pretensions of our corrupt rulers — the poorest 
man will derive solid benefit — myriads of wives and children 
will be better housed, fed, and clad — the people will become 
too proud to wear the degraded livery of a policeman, or to 
enlist as soldiers, to murder at the bidding of an aristocrat 
their unoffending brothers for a shilling a day — our rulers 
will be deprived of an immense revenue — and, to crown all, 
no government can long withstand the just claims of a people 
who have had the courage to conquer their own vices. 1 

In its connection with Chartism the agitation for temper- 
ance, like that for education, traces its beginnings to the 
Working Men's Association of London. As early as 1829 
Lovett began to take an active interest in temperance. 2 
When the London Working Men's Association was formed 
a few years later they sought " to make the principles of 
democracy as respectable in practice as they are just in 
theory, by excluding the drunken and immoral " a and those 
who " drown their intellect amid the drunkenness of the 
pot house." 4 And lest the members might succumb to 
temptation they avoided holding their meetings at public 
houses because " habit and associations are too often formed 
at those places which mar the domestic happiness, and de- 

1 English Chartist Circular, p. 35. 

2 Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 57. 
s Ibid. , p. 94. 

*• Ibid., p. 95. 



54 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [518 

stroy the political usefulness of the millions." x If no better 
place offered they were to meet at one another's houses. 2 
Still later one reason given for the founding of the National 
Association of the United Kingdom s was the establishment 
of public halls where the workingmen. " might be taken out 
of the contaminating influence of public-houses and beer- 
shops — places where many of their meetings are still held, 
in which their passions are inflamed, their reasons drowned, 
their families pauperized, and themselves socially degraded 
and politically enslaved." i The same group who fig- 
ured so prominently in educational efforts — Hether- 
ington, Cleave, Lovett and Watson — in January, 1840, 
established The English Chartist Circular and Temperance 
Advocate for England and Wales, which was edited by 
James Harris and served as the official organ for the Chart- 
ist Teetotal Societies. 

Vincent, who' was perhaps the greatest orator which the 
Chartist movement produced, 5 had during his imprisonment 
become convinced that teetotalism was the prime requisite 
for success in obtaining the Charter. Upon his release in 
January, 1841, he issued 6 an Address to the Workingmen 
of England, Scotland, and Wales in which he called upon 
them to adopt the Teetotal Pledge and " to form themselves 
into Chartist Teetotal Societies in every city, town and 
village." 7 The address was signed by many of the most 
prominent Chartists in all parts of the kingdom. Vincent 
followed it up by lecture tours and public propaganda of 

1 Lovett, op. tit., p. 65. 2 Ibid., p. 96. 

3 Ibid., pp. 248 et seq. 

4 Ibid., p. 254. 

5 Gammage, op. tit., p. n. 

6 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. lviii, p. 359. 
1 English Chartist Circular, p. 35. 



jtqJ SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 55 

all kinds. In this he was ably aided by Thomas Cooper, 1 
Rev. William Hill, Joseph Barker 2 and others, and by such 
Chartist publications as. the English Chartist Circular, the 
Chartist Circular (Scotch), 3 Reformer's Almanac, 4 ' etc. 
O'Connor himself was inclined to- throw ridicule upon 
the movement 3 but the editor of his paper, Hill, was 
ardently for it ° and O'Connor's influence was thus in a 
measure neutralized. Vincent and his followers went into 
the proposition whole-heartedly. Temperance and moder- 
ate drinking they were opposed to — only absolute teetotal- 
ism would suffice. 

The idea of teetotalism took hold for a time, at least, and 
during the early months of 1841 numerous Chartist Tee- 
total Societies were formed in England which sought to 
combine an advocacy of the principles of the Charter and 
total abstinence. The reports of their activities, may be 
partially followed in the files of the Chartist Circular. At 
the outset much enthusiasm was manifested and Vincent 
reported the administering of the pledge to numerous, fol- 
lowers, while Cooper in Leicester succeeded in persuading 
several hundreds to " promise to abstain, etc., until the 
People's Charter becomes the law of the land." 7 Towards 
the latter part of 1841 the reports cease to come in and it is 
probable that the Chartist Teetotal Societies declined rapidly. 
The work of the Chartist Teetotalers did, however, con- 
tribute something positive to the cause of temperance and 
the general moral uplift of the English workingman. 

1 Cooper, Life of Cooper, pp. 164 et seq. 

2 New History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 525; The People, p. 1. 

3 Chartist Circular, pp. 285, 286. 

4 Reformer's Almanac, p. 238. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 196. 

6 English Chartist Circular, p. 46. 

7 Cooper, Life of Cooper, p. 165. 



5 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [q 2 Q 

IV. OTHER REFORMS 

The effort " to generate a moral stamina in the ranks of 
the millions " 1 was not confined to temperance and educa- 
tion. Alongside of these there developed a higher concep- 
tion of the mission of women. 2 In an address issued by the 
Working Men's Association to their "working class brethren 
in America " Lovett writes, 

We seek to make the mothers of our children fit instructors 
for promoting our social and political advancement, by reading 
and conversing with them upon all subjects we may be ac- 
quainted with; and thus by kindness and affection to make 
them our companions in knowledge and happiness, and not, 
as at present, mere domestic drudges and ignorant slaves of 
our passions. 31 

Their co-operation in the struggle for the Charter was 
welcomed and Female Chartist Societies were formed 4 
which contributed not a little to the strength of the move- 
ment. 6 

Although chiefly concerned with economic and political 
reforms the Chartists were nevertheless usually to' be found 
in the forefront of all progressive agitation. Thus the 
movement for the abolition of the death penalty found 
warm supporters in the Chartist ranks. 6 Militarism was 
particularly obnoxious, especially to those who had en- 
joyed a taste of it. Standing armies were declared by 
the London Convention of 185 1 to be "contrary to' the 

1 Lovett, op. cit., p. 133. 

2 See Lovett's "Woman's Mission"; Gammage, op. cit., p. 11. 
3 Solly, James Woodford, vol. i, pp. 75, 76. 

* English Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 6. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 82, 188. 

6 Dierlamm, Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegung, p. 45 ; 
Gammage, op. cit., p. 372; The Reformer, p. 1. 



-2i] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 57 

principles of Democracy, and dangerous to the liberty of the 
people." x The group of Chartist leaders who- were the 
backbone of the London Working Men's Association were 
ardent pacifists. To Lovett, speaking on behalf of the 
association, war was but a " barbarous means for brutaliz- 
ing the people " and an instrument " to gratify aristocratic 
cupidity, selfishness, and ambition," 2 the result of which is to 
lead thousands to- slaughter and to death, to increase the 
national debt and leave the stigma of cruelty and injustice 
upon the national character. "If war is the only path to 
civilization," cried Lovett, " what a mockery is it to preach 
up the religion of Christ." 3 Most of the arguments of the 
present-day pacifists were known and used by the Chartists. 
The majority of the reforms and innovations advocated 
by the Chartists were obviously laudable. Others were 
honestly debatable. None were actually revolutionary. 
Their program, taken broadly, was a scheme for the politi- 
cal, intellectual and moral regeneration of the masses, and 
so it was considered by most of the reformers of the day 
who, perhaps, might differ as to some of the details. The 
attitude toward the advocates of these innovations on the 
part of the upper and middle classes, while not exceptional 
in the history of radical movements, is an interest- 
ing instance of the mind of the conservative. The prevail- 
ing feeling toward the Chartists, says Solly, was one of 
" horror and disgust." 4 " By highly respectable and most 
pious folk," observes Linton, " Chartism was considered 
vulgar and disreputable." 5 Although the idea of the aver- 

1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 371, 372. 
*jLovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 265, 266. 

3 Lovett, op. cit., p. 307, in An Apology of Peace from the London 
Working Men's Association; also p. 320. 
* Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. i, p. 345. 
5 Linton, Memories, pp. 75, 76. 



58 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [522 

age Englishman in regard to Chartism was undoubtedly 
very hazy, 1 he was sure it was something evil and to be 
avoided. To become associated with " the lawless demo- 
crats " and " the enemies of law and order," as they were 
frequently called, entailed usually the loss of the friend- 
ship of former associates and frequently of the means of 
livelihood itself. 2 To' advocate political freedom at a time 
when Europe was restless with revolution, secular education 
at a time when instruction was largely exploited by sectarian 
interests, teetotalism when intoxicating liquors were the or- 
dinary beverage of all, and the separation of church and 
state at just the time when the influence of the Oxford 
movement was beginning to make itself felt, was to> arouse 
the bitter antagonism of all classes. The aristocracy and 
bourgeoisie found the whole subject too' painful to contem- 
plate and sought refuge in government prosecutions and in 
the abridgement of common-law liberties. Yet the Chart- 
ists, who- had found in this agitation for political, economic, 
social and religious reformation a substitute for religious 
enthusiasm, firmly believed that they were not only trying 
to fulfill the teachings of Christ but were actually engaged 
in a work which rightfully belonged to the church. 

1 Parker, A Preacher's Life, p. 16. 

2 Contemporary Review, May, 1904, p. 733 ; Solly, These Eighty Years, 
vol. i, pp. 394, 398. 



CHAPTER III 

Attitude of the Churches Toward Chartism 

i. the church of england 

A. The Church as a Whole 

The unsavory reputation which the clergymen of the 
Established Church had acquired amongst the political radi- 
cals 1 was, on the whole, deserved. With even more vehem- 
ence than they had manifested against the Reform Bill of 
1832 they now took up the fight against Chartism. Almost as 
one man they stood opposed to further extension of the 
suffrage and the Chartists recognized in the clergymen of 
the Church of England their bitterest enemies. 

This clerical opposition was first naturally expressed in the 
most convenient means at hand. Innumerable sermons were 
preached on such subjects as " The Sin of Despising Domin- 
ion," 2 " Great Britain's Happiness," 3 " The Powers that be 
are Ordained of God," 4 " Obedience to Lawful Author- 
ity," 5 " Fear God and Honor the King," 6 etc. Of the 
printed political sermons some mention Chartism by name 

1 Supra, pp. 20 et seq. 

2 Sermon of Rev. John Haigh, M. A., reviewed in The People, p. 39. 
1 Sermon of Rev. Robert Sutton, Canon Redemptionary of Ripon, 

reviewed in The People, p. 169. 
* Sermon of Rev. J. Slade, of Bolton, reviewed in The People, p. 283. 

5 Sermon of Rev. E. B. Were, Ch. of Eng. Mag., vol. x, p. 216. 

6 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 392. 

523] 59 



6o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [524 

and some only by implication but all are " published with 
the view of checking the spread of democratic principles 
and the growth of democratic feeling." * They seldom at- 
tempt to argue out the proposition but are characterized by 
the most indiscriminate denunciation of all political reform- 
ers, who are referred to as " children of the devil ; as bad, 
immoral, and unprincipled men; as filthy dreamers," and the 
like. 2 

A number of sermons were preached expressly on Chart- 
ism, usually upon the visit to a church of the Chartists 
in a body. 3 Some half-dozen of these sermons were printed 
and had a large circulation, being distributed as tracts by 
the Religious Tract Society. 4 One of them has already 
been briefly examined. 5 It will suffice to glance at another, 
that by the Rev. Evan Jenkins, Incumbent Minister of Dow- 
lais, entitled Chartism Unmasked, which, according to 
the title page, reached nineteen editions. Jenkins begins 
by affirming that " The doctrines taught and urged by the 
Chartist leaders, are as diametrically opposed to the doc- 
trines revealed in the eternal word of God, as the North is 
to the South." 6 " The Chartist leaders," says he, " preach 
and teach the doctrine of ' equality ' ; but we have no such 
doctrine taught us by the Book of Nature or the Book of 
God." After illustrating inequality in nature he shows 
how it exists in every field o<f human life and government, 
quoting Exodus xviii. 20, 21, 22; Judges 11. 16; I Sam- 
uel 11. 7; Proverbs vin. 15; 16; Daniel 111. ; and Romans 
xiii. 1, to prove that the doctrine of " gradations " has 

1 The People, p. 169. 
8 Ibid., p. 39. 

3 Supra, pp. 35 et seq. 

4 Chartist Circular, p. 193. 

5 Supra, p. 37. 

6 Jenkins, Chartism Unmasked, pp. 5 et seq. 



525] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 6l 

the divine sanction. The second Chartist doctrine op- 
posed to the word of God, he continues, is " the following, 
namely, that poverty is not the result of the everlasting 
purpose of a Sovereign God, but is only the result of unjust 
human laws, and of the oppression of unfeeling, selfish, 
hard-hearted, and grinding rich men." . This is disproved 
also by the Bible which says that " The poor shall never 
cease out of the land." "Ask yourself w!k> is right and 
who is wrong?", cries Jenkins, "the all-wise God or the 
Chartist leaders." 

The points of the Charter were, in his mind, easily dis- 
posed of. Annual parliaments meant simply " annual 
squabbles, annual turmoils, annual upsetting and destruc- 
tion of the peace, tranquillity, unity and trade of the coun- 
try." x Universal suffrage would bring nothing but uni- 
versal confusion with father divided against son and the 
mother against the daughter. " Vote by ballot would be 
nothing but a law for rogues and knaves, nothing but a 
cloak for dishonesty, insincerity, hypocrisy and lies!" To 
pay members of Parliament would only make inefficient 
members more idle and would turn the Parliament into a 
group of adventurers whose whole interest would be, "How 
to advance their own wages." 

Not only is poverty appointed by God, said Jenkins, but 
so also is "work and labour" (Genesis 111. 19; Exodus 
xx. 9). But if God has ordained poverty and labor he has 
also made abundant provision for the present comfort and 
eternal happiness of the poor : ( 1 ) He has commanded the 
rich to contribute liberally toward their wants (Deut. xv. 
7-1 1 ; vi. 17-19; 1 John 111. 17-18); (2) God himself has 
promised that the pious poor shall have a sufficiency (Psalm 
lxviii. 10; cxxxn. 10; Isaiah xli. 17; Matt. vi. 26, 

1 Jenkins, Chartism Unmasked, pp. 10 et seq. 



§2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [526 

28-30) ; (3) God has made a further and better provision 
for the poor, a spiritual one, because (a) Jesus was poor; 
(b) the ministry of Christ was in a peculiar manner the 
ministry of the poor (Matth. xi. 4-6) ; (c) the salvation 
of the poor is much easier to obtain than that of the 
rich (Mark x. 23; Romans 11. 4-6; 1 Tim. vi. 9; 1 Cor. 
1. 26-28; James 11. 5). 

Having established this relationship between the Gospel 
and the poor he entreated the people that they turn from, 
the Chartist leaders, 1 cease from reading " their inflamma- 
tory publications — publications that speak as highly of Tom 
Paine as they do of Jesus Christ !", that they " never attend 
Chartist and political meetings ", and " have nothing to do 
with secret societies and secret oaths ", that they " never, 
except upon some urgent business, be seen in one of the 
beer houses ", and above all that they should " embrace re- 
ligion." He closes with a plea for an adequate number 
of churches and devoted ministers. The Church of Eng- 
land, he says, " and Chartism totally oppose each other ", 2 
and 

a sufficient number of churches, with the blessing of God ac- 
companying and resting upon the ministrations of His servants, 
would soon prove an invincible barrier to the progress of 
Chartism, and all similar proceedings; and, would cause them 
to wither and die, by changing the minds, the feelings, the 
hearts, and consequently the actions of the people. 

These sermons, of course, did not go unchallenged. The 
Chartist Circular printed a series of three articles, each en- 
titled "A Tilt with the Parsons ", 3 while Joseph Barker in 

1 Jenkins, Chartism Unmasked, pp. 22 et seq. 

2 Appendix III. 

5 Chartist Circular, pp. 193, 205, 237. 



5 27] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 63 

a series of five articles in The People 1 reviews a sermon by 
Rev. John Haigh, of Huddersfield, and in eight articles 2 
headed " Our Admirable Constitution in Church and 
State," takes the Rev. Robert Sutton, Canon Redemptionary 
of Ripon, to task for his sermon on " Great Britain's Hap- 
piness." With such a skilled political controversialist 
as Barker the clergy could hardly hope to hold their own. 
Although the Chartists did not have Romans xiii. to i serve 
as a basis for their arguments, they had what was of much 
more practical value, namely, a fairly accurate idea of the 
actual state of the country politically and economically. In 
the mere matter of abuse and the calling of names the Char- 
tists proved as facile as the clergy. 

In addition to sermons, several pamphlets appeared from 
the pens of Anglican clergymen. The Rev. Hugh Stowell, 
M. A., in his pamphlet, No Revolution: A Word to the 
People of England, with the Biblical text, " Meddle not 
with them that are given to change ", on the title page, 3 
strikes a new chord when he appeals against the Chartists on 
the ground that many of their leaders are Irish Papists — ■ 
Jesuits perhaps. Others are traders in agitation. He main- 
tains that there is no' slavery in England, nor is there one 
law for the rich and another for the poor. If some of the 
workingmen are starving it is no fault of the masters, for 
the interests of both are identical. He closes in the cus- 
tomary strain : " May you never cast off your reverence 
for that Book which teaches you that ' the powers that be 
are ordained of God ', and that ' he that resisteth the power, 
resisteth the ordinance of God ' ! May you never set at 
naught the counsel of the wisest of men, ' Fear God and 

1 The People, pp. 39, 45, 73, 105, 113. 

2 Ibid., pp. 169, 177, 185, 201, 219, 233, 246, 289; see also p. 283. 

3 Third edition, Manchester, 1848. 



64 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [528 

the King; and meddle not with them that are given to 
change '." x 

Another anti-Chartist pamphlet is entitled, A Few 
Words to the Chartists by a Friend. Says the author, as 
he begins, I must 

at once tell you the worst of myself — those particulars, I 
mean, which may incline you the most to dislike and suspect 

1 This was immediately answered in a pamphlet entitled, Is There 
One Law for the Rich and Another for the Poor? Being a Reply by 
a Working Man to ' No Revolution ' lately published by the Rev. Hugh 
Stowell. On the title-page appears the text, " When the righteous 
are in authority the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule 
the people mourn." — Prov. xxix, 2. The Working Man answers that it 
is unfair to raise the cry of " No Popery " to stifle public opinion. He 
calls it slavery for a large class " to produce and yet have not," and 
" for the working bees to toil, and procure honey for the idle drones 
to devour." That there is class legislation, he says, is only too evident, 
and the most deplorable feature of the whole affair is that the clergy- 
men of the Established Church are responsible for it. In answer to 
the plea for " patience " and " trust in God," he answers : " Patience 
ought to have its limits, and that in addition to trust in God he ought 
to have his powder dry. The Bible tells us having food and raiment, 
therewith be content, but does not say having neither food or raiment 
we must be content" (p. 6). Then follows a refutation of the biblical 
quotations used by Stowell with a number of texts to strengthen the 
other side. In summing up he says: "That good subjects ought to 
have good government, that the laws of England ought to be in 
accordance with the laws of God, that the working man is stamped as 
much in the image of his Creator as the terrible and proud aristocrat, 
repeat that beautiful passage from 'Holy Writ contained in the second 
chapter of Malachi. It reads thus: 'Have we not all one father? 
hath not one God created us? — then why do we deal treacherously, 
every one with his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?' 
Do not tell us that divine providence has placed us in this wretched 
situation, while we know that it is base and wicked laws, made by base 
and wicked men. Do not show us the rough and thorny way to heaven, 
while you yourself the primrose path of dalliance tread. If our reward 
in heaven is to be in proportion to our sufferings on earth, if the 
greater our tribulations here, the greater our reward hereafter, tell the 
rich churchmen and over-paid parsons to change situations with us, 
and great will be their reward in heaven" (pp. 7, 8). 



529] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 65 

me. I am an old man : and therefore, you may probably con- 
clude, fixed in all notions, and desirous to keep all matters as 
they are — I also am a clergyman; and consequently you may 
set me down as a bigoted partisan in all church concerns. — 
Again: I am an elector; and so may be disposed to have no 
disposition to increase the number — and, farther, I am in the 
middle class of society. 1 

He is opposed to all points of the Charter. The people, 
he says, do not know enough to vote and would not send 
the best men to represent them. As to property qualifica- 
tion, those having property are the best to make laws con- 
cerning it. What is the use of paying members when you 
can get good men to serve for nothing? Annual parlia- 
ments would unnecessarily stir up the country. Secret 
ballot would not prove secret and it would separate the 
member from his constituents. He would hold the suffrage 
from the uneducated but he " distinctly and solemnly " 2) 
states that he imputes no blame to the working class be- 
cause of their ignorance. 

Still another was a tract by the Vicar of Rotherham 
entitled Modern Politicians: A Word to the Working 
Classes of Great Britain. The object of this pamphlet, ac- 
cording to Barker, appeared to be "to support existing evils, 
by throwing reproach and ridicule on the advocates of re- 
form ". 3 

The prevailing feeling among the clergy of the State 
Church was echoed in its papers representing both the High 
and Low Church schools. On examining the High Church 
papers it is discovered that the Christian Guardian and 
the Church of England Magazine is concerned because 
Satan and the " emissaries of evil " are spreading " politi- 
cal discontent and impatience of the control of religion " 

1 P. 3. 2 P. 11. 

3 Reformer's Almanac, p. 353. 



66 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [530 

in the manufacturing districts. 1 To the Christian Remem- 
brancer, " Radicalism and Chartism are impossible for 
Christians and Churchmen ", and, they trust, for England. 3 
The English Reviezu admits that, 

It is a sad but certain truth that vast masses of our labouring 
population, some hundreds of thousands in number, are banded 
together in an association, which professes, for the moment, 
only to seek for Universal Suffrage, and the centralization of all 
power in the working classes; but which at the same time 
demonstrates, through all its organs, its impatient eagerness to 
overthrow every institution of our country and create an abso- 
lute despotic democracy on the ruins of individual freedom 
and imperial greatness. 3 

Liberty, according to> the English Reviezu, is synonymous 
with division of power, and it is under this liberty 
that the people now live. If the middle classes have 
the House of Commons and the aristocracy the House 
of Lords, the unfranchised have great power too, " be- 
ing directly represented by public meetings, the right of 
petition, the show of hands at nomination, the press, etc." 
It is therefore the duty of all to teach the laboring classes 
to prefer " the true individual freedom which they at pres- 
ent enjoy " to a political change which would bring only 
" democratic despotism." 4 Three years later, in 185 1, this 
same paper feels called upon to dispel the " agreeable delu- 
sion " that Chartism is defunct. It is more dangerous than 
ever now, it asserts, because orderly. " For we have noth- 
ing to fear from democracy, the pike in its hand, 
everything from its gradual, and, if we may say ' constitu- 
tional ' demolition of our Constitution in Church and 

1 Vol. for 1847, p. 332. 2 Vol. viii, p. 683. 

3 Vol. ix, pp. 194, 195. 

4 English Review, vol. ix, pp. 194-196. 



531] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES fy 

State." 1 Any increase of the suffrage is to be dreaded 
as tending to establish the supreme authority in a single 
branch of the legislature, thus upsetting the equilibrium of 
balance of power. 2 

The Low Church organs were equally hostile. Although 
the Church of England Magazine attributed the riots of 
1842 to a lack of religion which would have made the oper- 
atives " satisfied with their position in life," 3 ' it still had a 
wholesome fear of Chartism. 4 The editor of the Christian 
Observer was greatly alarmed over the " Chartists and the 
very refuse of society who cannot, or will not, distinguish 
between the excellency of an institution and the casual tem- 
porary defects of its administration ", 5 and in the year 
1839 he mentions them almost every month in the depart- 
ment called " View of Public Affairs ". 6 The secular re- 
views like the Quarterly and the Edinburgh, which con- 
tained, however, numerous religious articles, were in a 
similar manner opposed to Chartism. 7 

Sometimes in the daily rounds of pastoral duty a clergy- 
man would find an opportunity to express his feelings in 
regard to the Chartist demands. Rev. J. T. Brown of 
Northampton, upon finding a Chartist tract in the house of 
a parishioner, tore out six leaves and threw them in the 
fire, afterwards asserting that any other tracts found in his 
district teaching sedition and blasphemy would be treated 
in a similar manner. 8 Joseph Parker tells of one man who 

1 English Review, vol. xvi, p. 56. 

2 Ibid., vol. xvi, p. 85. See also British Critic, vol. xxvii, pp. 340, 341. 
8 Church of England Magazine, vol. xvi, p. 368. 

4 Ibid., vol. xx, p. 215. 5 Christian Observer, vol. lix, p. 446. 

6 Ibid., pp. 381, 446, 510, 640, 817, and especially 573. 

7 Quarterly Review, vol. lxv, pp. 483 et seq.; vol. lxvi, pp. 461 et seq.; 
vol. lxxxv, p. 293 ; vol. lxxxix, pp. 491 et seq. 

8 The People, vol. i, p. 333. 



58 CHARTISM AXD THE CHURCHES [532 

proposed that the Northern Star be taken into a public news 
room, upon which " he was expelled for his insolence, the 
vicar and several persons of property passing him on the 
road as if he had lost any little character which he might 
have had." l 

t Kingsley, when he drew what he considered a type of 
the average Church of England clergyman of high rank, 
put in his mouth die words. " What's that about brother- 
hood and freedom. Lillian? We don't want anything of 
that kind here." : It was exactly that attitude which separ- 
ated so decidedly the clergy from the working-class radi- 
cals. It is true that in the opposition to the New Poor Law 
and in the tight against the factors" system an occasional 
point of contact was established. In the struggle for a 
greater democracy in church and state and in the emphasis 
placed upon Christianity the Chartists found little in com- 
mon with the Church of England or its representatives. 

B. The High Church or Oxford Movement 
Although the chief influence of the High Church move- 
ment was felt along theological and doctrinal lines, yet 
there was in it a distinctly political element which it 
is impossible to ignore. 3 This political feature was par- 
ticularly in evidence during the early years of that move- 
ment, for the political situation then called it into be- 
ing. The Reform Bill of 1S32 developed two distinct 
parties in the English Church, one of which decided to 
accept the inevitable and make the best of it, the other, 
later developing into the High Church Part}-, was " op- 
posed to liberalism in church and state ", 4 and was unwill- 
ing to remain passive under the attacks of the government. 

1 Parker, A Preacher's Life, p. 54. s Alton Locke, p. 154. 

8 Tulloch, Movement of Religious Thought in Britain during the 
Nineteenth Century, p. 105. 
4 Ibid., p. 88. 



533] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHB $g 

To this party the Reform Bill had come as a horrible night- 
mare, and was looked upon as a logical sequence to the anti- 
church measures already passed. 1 The composition of the 
first reformed parliament was not such as to allay their 
fears, and the ministry itself was thought to be " connected 
with all that was dangerous in religious principle, zealous 
friends of Rationalists, Deists, Socinians, Dissenters, and 
Roman Catholics, all of whom were equally bent on the 
destruction or" the Church." - The fears of Churchmen that 
further measures detrimental to the Establishment might be 
introduced were soon confirmed. Early in 1833 * the gov- 
ernment in consequence of a motion of Mr. Ward, mem- 
ber for St. Albans, brought in a bill to reduce the number 
of Irish bishops from twenty-two to twelve, and to tax the 
Irish clergy and apply the proceeds to the extinction of 
church-cess, a rate levied to keep the church buildings in 
good condition. It was this bill with the accompanying 
admonition of Lord Grey to the prelates to set their house 
in order that galvanized the High Church Party into action 
and caused the founding in 1833 °^ ' t ^ ie " Association of 
Friends of the Church "* the beginning of the Oxford 
Movement and the publication of the Tracts for the Times- 
These circumstances led Dean Stanley to ascribe to the 
movement an " origin entirely political ". 5 The fol- 
lowers of Pusey and R. H. Froude fought every hostile 
movement on the part of the government, to the extent of 

1 The High Churchmen looked upon the repeal of the Test and Cor- 
poration Acts of 1828 and the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as 
anti-church measures. Vide Overton, The Anglican Revival, p. 9. 

2 Palmer, Narrative of Events Connected with the Publication of 
Tracts for the Times, p. 38. 

3 Ibid., pp. 44, 101 ; Moles-worth, History of England, vol. i, p. 286. 

4 Palmer, op. cit., pp. 95 et seq. 

s Church, The Oxford Movement, pp. 1, 2, note; Edinburgh Review,_ 
1880, pp. 309, 310. 



j CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [534 

opposing in 1836 the reform of the English Church, 1 and 
so exerted an influence political as well as spiritual. 2 

The politics of the Oxford Movement were ultra-Tory. 
Froude " was a Tory of the old Cavalier stamp." 3 To 
Newman, revolutionary Paris was so distasteful that he 
kept indoors when his boat stopped at Algiers so as not to 
look upon the Tricolor. 4 Keble was a " Tory of the Old 
School ". 5 Ward in his college days at Oxford moved at 
the Union : " That an absolute monarchy is a more desir- 
able form of government than the constitution proposed by 
the Reform Bill of Lord John Russell ". 6 Rose, Palmer 
and Percival were equally conservative. 7 In fact to be a 
High Churchman was synonymous with being a Tory. 8 

" It was a new Toryism or designed to be such, as well as a 
new sacerdotalism ", 9 says Professor Tulloch. It was in- 
deed a new Toryism of a particularly vital kind, not a 
mere helpless attempt to maintain the status quo. The 
glories of the medieval state as pictured by Scott 10 and of 
the medieval church as drawn by Ward in The Ideal Church 
seem to have been continually before the minds of the 
Oxford leaders. With " its bases in a deep distrust of 
democracy ", " the High Church party stood for the asser- 

1 Palmer, op. cit., p. 63. 

2 Ibid., pp. 105 et seq. 

3 Newman, Apologia, p. 48 (Everyman's Library edition). 
* Tulloch, op. cit., p. 105. 

5 Ibid., p. 87; also Letters and Correspondence, ed. by Anne Mozley, 
p. 32. 

6 Ward, William Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 20. 

7 Overton, The Anglican Revival, p. 32. 

8 Mozley, Reminiscences Chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford 
Movement, vol. i, p. 188. 

9 Tulloch, op. cit., p. 105. 

10 British Critic, April, 1839, vol. xxv, p. 399. 



535] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES yi 

tion of paternalism in government " and " of a more or less 
paternal ecclesiasticism ". x The Catholic idea that unques- 
tioning obedience is a virtue in itself was firmly embedded 
in the doctrine of Puseyism. A reverence for authority, 
especially ecclesiastical, was fundamental, while unstinted 
condemnation was meted out to the spirit of lawlessness of 
the times. 2 The attitude of the Oxford Movement to the 
liberalism of the day is nowhere better set forth than in 
the first part of Tract 83, published in 1840, where most of 
the reform projects of the time are ascribed to Satan's 
efforts to bring about an apostasy from the Church of 
Christ. It says: 

He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he 
promises you trade and wealth ; he promises you a remission 
of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way he con- 
ceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; 
he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors ; he 
does so himself, and induces you to imitate him ; or he promises 
you illumination — he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, 
enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by, he scoffs 
at every institution that reveres them," etc. 5 

These are the characteristics of the " Times of Antichrist " 
to which the Oxford Movement is unalterably opposed. 

But not only did Puseyism have political antecedents and 
teach a definite political doctrine but it had its recognized 
ally in the political arena of the day. Partially through its 
influence a new party was growing up, known as " Young 
England ". What the Oxford Movement would do for the 

1 Hall, Social Meaning of Modem Religious Movements in England, 
pp. 219, 222, 230. 

2 Ibid., p. 229 ; Tracts for the Times, no. 86, pp. 39, 50, 84 et seq., and 
no. 87, p. 121. 

3 Tracts for the Times, no. 83, pp. 13, 14. 



72 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [536 

Church, Young England would do for the state. 1 Repu- 
diating Conservatism, Whiggism and Radicalism as all 
alike inadequate to the needs of the time the Young Eng- 
land Party, like the Oxford, stood for a new Toryism, a 
Toryism with a program. An examination of the platform 
of the Young England Party as promulgated by Disraeli in 
his Sybil (1844) and Coningsby (1845) shows an unmis- 
takable affinity between the purposes of the two movements, 
which was generally conceded at the time. 2 In secular 
politics Young England would abolish class legislation, 
recognize the authority of public opinion and restore to the 
sovereign his lost prerogatives, 3 attaining progress with- 
out change in the form of government. 4 In ecclesiastical 
matters they would restore the church to its medieval glory 
of freedom from the state, of emphasis upon forms, of 
democracy and of friendship for the people. 5 

To Young England the social question was a most im- 
portant one. The attitude of this group is unmistakably 
expressed in Disraeli's Chartist novel, Sybil or The Two 
Nations. Stirred by what he considered the two great 
evils of the time, namely, " the oppression of the church 
and the degradation of the people ", 6 Disraeli held that the 
working class, as a class, were entitled to certain privileges 
as much as any class in England and those privileges con- 
sisted of at least food, clothing and shelter. In support of 
this he said : 

the rights of labor were as sacred as those of property; that 
if a difference were to be established, the interests of the 

1 Edinburgh Review, vol. 81, pp. 504, 505. 

2 Christian Remembrancer, June, 1844, p. 678. 

3 Disraeli, Sybil, pp. 314, 489. * Ibid., p. 335. 

5 Eclectic Magazine, 1844, p. 51. 

6 Disraeli, Sybil, pp. 67, 69, 128, 129. 



537] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 73 

living ought to be preferred . . . the social happiness of the 
millions should be the first object of a statesman, and that, if 
this were not achieved, thrones and dominions, the pomp and 
power of courts and empires, were alike worthless. 1 

He would " bring back strength to the Crown, liberty 
to the Subject, and announce that power has only one 
duty; to secure the social welfare of the People". 2 This 
prosperity of the people he would bring back not by 
increasing the franchise but by educating the wealthy and 
the churches up to a sense of their duty. The nobility 
should look upon the tenantry as human beings rather than 
as so much wealth, while the church, as in the middle 
ages, should turn to wholesale and lavish charity. The 
noble was to be " father of the poor and chief of the neigh- 
borhood ". Disraeli's ideas were taken up enthusiastically 
by many. " Doles were formally given out at stated hours 
to all who would come for them at the castle gate ", 3 ' while 
' Young noblemen played cricket with the peasants on their 
estates and the Saturnian age was believed by a good many 
to be returning." 4 In other words the whole scheme was 
that of a great paternal and benevolent despotism. Dis- 
raeli has infinite sympathy for the poor and oppressed, but 
no faith in Chartism as a means of bettering their lot. 

Although the combination of the activities of these two 
parties, the State and Church Puseyites, caused an out- 
break of social activity and philanthropic work similar to 
that accompanying the Methodist revival, 5 yet this was not 
what the Chartists wanted. Undoubtedly the idea of Dis- 

1 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 337. 2 Ibid., p. 315. 

* McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times, vol. i, p. 328. 

4 Ibid., vol. i, p. 329. 

5 Hall, op. cit., pp. 221, 224, 225 ; Palmer, op. cit., pp. 258, 259. 



74 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [538. 

raeli's paternal despotism might have appealed to such men 
as Stephens or even O'Connor or O'Brien, 1 but it had no 
place in the thought of the school of Lovett. Dierlamm well 
says : " The striving toward social, political and intellectual 
independence of the workers — one of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of Chartism — stood diametrically opposed to the 
thought of Disraeli ". 2 The Times newspaper, which was 
considered as the special mouthpiece of the Young Eng- 
land party, 3 was most bitterly hated by the Chartists. 4 

There was, however, a superficial similarity between the 
ideas of one group of Chartists, and the followers of the 
Oxford Movement and Young England in at least one 
respect. Dierlamm makes a strong point when he maintains 
that the real division in the Chartist ranks was not that be- 
tween the physical and moral force wings (this division 
is to be found in all movements), but in the division be- 
tween those who, like O'Connor and O'Brien, were forever 
looking backward to the former prosperous days of the 
English laborer and seeking to restore conditions which 
had forever passed away, and those who, like Lovett and 
Cooper, accepted the changes of the industrial revolution 
and sought a remedy in the intellectual and moral develop- 
ment and regeneration of the workingman. 5 It was the 
futile endeavor to bring back the good old days, which 
probably never existed, and the continuous looking back- 
ward that bound in a measure one group of Chartists to the 

1 Dierlamm, Die Flugsckriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegung, p. 19. 

2 Ibid., p. 87. " Das Streben nach zozialen, politischen und intellectu- 
ellen Selbstandigheit des Arbeiters — eine des Grundideen des Chartis- 
mus — stand der Gedanken Disraeli's diametral entgegen." 

3 Ed. Rev., vol. lxxxi, p. 504. 

4 Dierlamm, op. cit., p. 80. 

5 Dierlamm, op. cit., p. 9. 



53 9] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 75 

two aristocratic x movements in church and state. But the 
average Chartist wanted first political justice, thinking that 
having once acquired this, he would be in a position to de- 
mand and obtain social justice. With the ultra-Toryism 
and the benevolent despotism of the Oxford Movement and 
Young England, Chartism had always little sympathy. One 
Chartist, Charles Westerton, " rendered great service to the 
Liberal cause by his opposition to Puseyism ", 2 while Lovett 
and other leaders were equally hostile. The whole Chartist 
conception of Christian worship as exemplified in their re- 
ligious dogma 3 and in the Chartist Churches 4 was the exact 
opposite to that held by the Oxford Movement and its 
allies in parliament. 

C. The Broad Church 

While the High Churchmen, sighing for an idealistic 
medievalism, sought a solution for the social problem in a 
return to the conditions of bygone days, another branch of 
the Church of England with a viewpoint more practical 
was making itself felt. This was the Broad Church move- 
ment, which traces its line from Coleridge and Arnold 
through Maurice and Kingsley to Ruskin and Toynbee. 
The leaders of this school were actuated by a willingness to 
accept the inevitable developments in science and democ- 
racy, 5 but meant, if possible, to bring them in line with 
Christianity. 

What transformed the Broad Church movement from 
the dilettante musings of a few philosophically inclined 

1 Palmer, op. cit., p. 60. 

2 Lovett, op. cit., p. 259. 

3 Supra, pp. 19 et seq. 

4 Supra, pp. 42 et seq. 

5 Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of His Life, vol. i, p. 
141. 



76 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [540 

literary men and ministers to a vital factor in the life of 
England was the almost incredible growth of infidelity par- 
ticularly amongst the working classes. The real struggle 
of the day, said Maurice, was between Atheism and Christ, 1 
while Kingsley thought that in the approaching political 
and social crisis, " religion, like a rootless plant, may be 
brushed away in the struggle ". 2 The workingmen, wear- 
ied with the cant phrases of the orthodox churchmen and 
disgusted with their unwillingness or failure to meet 
squarely the questions of the religious radicals from Paine 
and Priestley to Mill and Holyoake, seemed to be drifting 
entirely away from the influence of the church. " In plain 
truth," said Kingsley, " the English clergy must Arnold- 
ize, if they do not wish to go either to Rome or to the work- 
house, before fifty years are out ". 3 It was toward an 
attempt to reconcile science and religion and to win the free- 
thinkers back that the Broad Churchmen directed their 
activities. 

In the purely intellectual field such men as Whately, 
Arnold of Rugby, Hampden, Stanley, Milman and Thirl- 
wall rendered " vast assistance to men struggling with the 
evident contradictions between modern criticism, history, 
and philosophy and the systems of religious belief common 
in their day ". 4 But the inevitable alliance of liberalism 
in politics and religion soon drew the attention of the 
Broad Church leaders to the social problem, for " the now 
threatening danger of English life was the identification of 
all social change with extreme radicalism in religion ", 5 
This truth seems to have been first intensely felt by Fred- 

1 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 142. i Ibid., vol. i, p. 142. 

3 Ibid., vol. i, p. 143. 

4 Hall, op. cit., p. 181. 

5 Ibid., p. 182. 



341] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES yy 

erick Denison Maurice, but the facts were so obvious and 
the need for action so great that he was soon surrounded 
by an ardent band of co-workers, the most important of 
whom were Charles Kingsley, Archdeacon Hare, William 
Ludlow and Thomas Hughes, 1 while Robertson of Brigh- 
ton, although not in sympathy with the socialism of these 
men, held closely to their views in other respects. 2 

This group had been considering for some time the best 
method of approach to the workingmen, when the revolu- 
tion of 1848 on the Continent and the renewed activity of 
the Chartists at home gave them an opportunity which they 
at once seized. To the Chartists, disappointed after the 
fiasco on Kennington Common, Kingsley came with his 
appeal of April 12th. 31 This was followed on May 6th by 
the first number of Politics for the People, 4 ' to which 
Maurice, Kingsley, Ludlow, Archdeacon Hare, Professor 
Conington, Archbishop Whately and Sir Arthur Helps 
were important contributors. 5 Politics for the People 
(1848) was far from being a Chartist publication; it was 
almost conservative. Physical Force Chartism was de- 
nounced even to the extent of condemning monster meet- 
ings, whether lawful or not, as senseless and criminal, 6 and 
" the demand for universal suffrage by men who' had neither 
education or moral self-government to qualify for the 
vote " 7 was vigorously opposed. 

1 Seligman, " Owen and the Christian Socialists," Political Science 
Quarterly, vol. i, pp. 221, 239. 

2 Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, chap. ix. 

3 Appendix VI; Charles Kingsley, vol. i, pp. 156, 157. 

4 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 162 ; Maurice, Life of Frederick D. 
Maurice, vol. i, p. 474. 

5 Seligman, op. cit., p. 226. 

6 Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 472. 

7 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 162. 



7 8 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [542 

The relationship of such men as Maurice, Kingsley. 
and Robertson to> the Chartist movement is easily mis- 
understood. It is true that Kingsley wrote a Chartist 
novel in which he pleaded passionately for justice to the 
lower classes, and he and Maurice addressed frequent 
groups of Chartists/ as did Robertson." But not one of 
the three had any faith in Chartism as a political creed, or 
believed that the Six Points would remedy the sociai evils 
or materially ameliorate the lot of the workingman. Mau- 
rice speatcs of the " unrighteous pretensions " 3 of Chart- 
ism and offers himself as a special constable for the 10th 
of April. 4 Robertson admits that the Chartists refused to 
own him as a brother. 5 It is true that Kingsley proclaimed 
himself a Chartist one time at a public meeting, 6 but he 
never advocated any of its points or apparently had any faith 
in them. As he himself said, " But my quarrel with the 
Charter is, that it does not go far enough in reform." He 
was not bitterly opposed to it; he simply thought that, ft&ili 
method o± reform., it tailed to touch the. real need of tne 
people. He chides the Chartists with the mistake " of 
fancying that legislative reform is social reform, or that 
men's hearts can be changed by Act of Parliament ", and 
goes on to say : 

If anyone will tell me of a country where a charter made the 
rogues honest, or the idle industrious, I shall alter my opinion 
of the Charter, but not till then. It disappointed me bitterly 
when I read it. It seemed a harmless cry enough, but a poor, 
bald, constitutionmongering cry as I ever heard. That French 

1 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, pp. 205 et seq.; Life of Maurice, vol. i, pp. 
519, 536, 537, 538, 539, 542. 

2 Brooke, Life of Robertson, Appendix, pp. 743, 748. 

3 Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 278. 4 Ibid., p. 472. 

5 Life, p. 170. 

6 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 166. 



543 ] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES yg 

cry of " Organization of Labour " is worth a thousand of it, 
and yet that does not go to the bottom of the matter by many 
a mile. 1 

In Alton Lorke the failure of Chartism does not concern him 
greatly. In fact he looks upon it almost as a just retribu- 
tion for the sins of the Chartists, and as an event which 
should bring them back to better and more certain ways of 
gaining their rights. 2 

What then had the Broad Churchmen to offer the lower 
classes in place of the Charter? Two things primarily — 
education and cooperation. In January, 1840, Maurice 
said that Chartism could only be crushed by education ". 3 
Robertson's advice was : "Reform yourselves and institutions 
will reform themselves." 4 " Workers of England," wrote 
Kingsley, " be wise, and then you must be free, for then 
you will be fit to be free." 5 The emphasis was upon a 
reform of the individual not upon the government. A 
practical beginning in education was made at Little Ormond 
Yard, " a place so disorderly that no policeman liked to 
venture there at night ". 6 By i860, Workingmen's Colleges 
were established in at least eleven cities. 7 The educational 
work of Toynbee Hall, of Morris and of Ruskin was in a 
measure an outgrowth of the efforts of Maurice and his 
fellow-laborers. 8 

As a more immediate method of alleviation, Maurice and 

1 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 163. 

2 Alton Locke, chap. xl. 

3 Life of Maurice, vol. 1, p. 278. 

4 Brooke, Life of Robertson, p. 748. 

5 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 157. 

6 Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 482. 

7 Ibid., vol. i, p. 378. 

8 Hall, op. cit., p. 197. 



80 CHARTISM AND THE GHURCHES [544 

Kingsley, aided by Ludlow, Hughes and others, proposed 
cooperation. They called themselves "Christian Socialists" 
and desired to organize the trades into cooperative societies 
on a Christian basis. A beginning was made with the 
tailors in 1850, 1 and several societies were formed. Al- 
though cooperation has made progress in England these 
organizations soon disappeared. The history of the Chris- 
tian Socialists and their activities resembles closely that of 
the London Working Men's Association, whose early co- 
operative efforts eventually gave way to education. 

The influence of the Broad Church movement upon the 
social life of England was important. By helping the 
workingmen find a solution for their religious doubts, and 
by demonstrating that the church had an interest in their 
welfare, it was able to retain many of them for Christianity. 
It also infused into the institutions of Owen the inspir- 
ation oi a religious altruism, 2 and by infecting the spirit 
that propagated socialism with " a deep distrust for 
either sharply cut class lines or of intensely dogmatic posi- 
tions ", 2 it greatly hindered the development of a strong 
socialistic party in England. Its value here is, of course, 
an open question. To the Chartist movement after 1848 it 
contributed indirectly by (1) bringing to the classes of 
England a better understanding of one another, and (2) by 
preparing through education the English workingman for 
an eventual successful attainment of his desires. 

II. THE WESLEYAN METHODIST CHURCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS 

The fact that the Established Church took up a position 
bitterly opposed to Chartism, can surprise no one. It might 

1 Life of Maurice, vol. ii, p. 40. 

2 Hall, op. tit., p. 204. 



545] 



ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 



be supposed, however, that the Methodists, if not actually 
cooperating with the Chartists, would at least be in sym- 
pathy with them, and this for several reasons. In the first 
place, speaking broadly, Methodism was the religion of the 
poorer classes, 1 as Chartism was their politics. " Metho- 
dism," said Lecky, " has long since taken its position as pre- 
eminently and almost exclusively the religion of the middle 
and lower classes of society." 2 The great majority of 
Wesleyan preachers were recruited from the poorer people, 
from the promising local preachers who, with their intelli- 
gence and antecedents, might be expected to support any 
scheme for the political or social advancement of the people. 
Again, Methodism won its greatest successes amongst the 
operatives and miners, 3 the classes particularly favorable 
to Chartism. Finally, even the enemies of Methodism and 
Chartism were the same, namely, that " hereditary wealth 
and influence, whether landed, manufacturing or mercan- 
tile." 4 Why was it, then, that Methodism, at least the official 
Methodism of the largest branch, the Wesleyan Methodists, 
assumed an attitude so uncompromising in opposition to the 
democratic innovations of the Chartists? To answer this 
question it is worth while to run back briefly over the con- 
nexional history and general political outlook of the Metho- 
dists. 

The Wesleyan Methodist Church, as it developed, assumed 
the form of a " connexion," which has been defined as " a 
number of societies who have agreed to unite themselves 
in a common bond of doctrine and discipline, under a com- 

1 Minutes, vol. x, p. 102. 

2 Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii, p. 640. 

3 Quarterly Review, no. 139, p. 167. 

4 Rigg, The Connexional Economy of Wesleyan Meth. (London, 
1879), pp. 201, 202. 



82 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [546 

mon code of regulations and usages, and under a common 
government." * This sounds harmless enough; but in the 
form it took under Wesley and his successors it resembled 
far more the closely-knit organization of the Episcopal and 
Catholic than that of the Independent and other nonconform- 
ist churches of England. Over the classes, societies, circuits 
and districts were appointed teachers, lay preachers, minis- 
ters, superintendents, and over these the conference and 
Legal Hundred, 2 " oversight, as in the Society of Jesus, 
being reduced to an exact science." * Power was almost 
exclusively in the hands of the ministers, the control of the 
laymen being almost a minus quantity. As a natural con- 
sequence, the history of Wesleyan Methodism since the 
death of Wesley has been largely a record of revolts and 
attempts to introduce more democracy into the government 
of the church. 

While Wesley lived he was able to exercise a paternal 
absolutism through the force of his superior personality 
and intellectual gifts and through his position as the foun- 
der of a new movement. But the control which he pos- 
sessed as father of the movement did not rest so gracefully 
on the shoulders of his legal successors, the Hundred Min- 
isters, and troubles were not long coming. In 1795 Kil- 
ham, not satisfied with the reforms of the " Plan of Paci- 
fication," published his pamphlet, The Progress of Liberty 
Among the People Called Methodists, was expelled, and 
started the Methodist New Connexion. In 1806 the " Band 
Room Methodists " broke away, and in 1810 Bourne and 

1 Watson, An Affectionate Address, p. 4. 

2 By a Deed of Declaration in the Court of Chancery, February 28, 
1784, Wesley passed on his power at his death to a conference of one 
hundred ministers, in whom was vested the full government of the 
Wesleyan Methodists. 

8 Faulkner, in New International Encyclopedia, 2d ed., vol. xv, p. 505. 



54 7] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 83 

his companions, having been expelled during the camp-meet- 
ing controversy, 1 started the Primitive Methodists — a body 
of earnest followers of Wesley, who have increased largely in 
the nineteenth century. O'Bryan in 181 5, after his expulsion, 
organized his societies into what were later called Bible 
Christians. In 1828 the Leeds Organ case; in 1834 the ex- 
pulsion of J. R. Stephens; in 1835 the Warren controversy 
and the affair of the Rochdale petitioners; and in 1836 the 
secession of the Arminian Methodists, caused considerable 
loss and some few concessions. When in 1849 even ^ ree 
speech became impossible under Bunting and his followers, 
the most important agitation of all, that of Everett, Dunn 
and Griffith, resulted in a membership loss of 100,000 and 
a revenue loss of £100,000 in three years. 

Concerning these secessions two facts stand forth pre- 
eminently. In the first place, all of them, with one minor 
exception (that of the Arminians in 1835), were on political 
and administrative, not doctrinal grounds, and caused by dis- 
satisfaction with the form of government. Secondly, the 
agitations in the church were closely associated in point of 
time with periods of political and revolutionary agitation in 
England and Europe. The Methodist agitations were 
grouped around three periods: first, the period of the 
French Revolution when the followers of Kilham broke 
away; second, the period of the agitation for the Reform 
Bill when the Leeds Organ case and the Warren affair dis- 
turbed the church; and third, the revolutionary period of 
1848 which resulted in the Wesleyan Reform Movement. 
"The revolutionary ideas of the Chartist Period (1840- 
1848) and of Continental politics (1848- 1849) reacted 

1 Minutes for 1807 and 1810. 



84 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [548 

upon Wesleyan Methodism as the political ideas of 1791 
and 1 83 1 had done in these epochs." 1 

Along with this distrust of democracy in church govern- 
ment there was a distinctly conservative policy in political 
matters. This was inherited from Wesley himself, who, as 
a Tory, always stood for the status quo in government and 
for the powers that be, his writings apparently lacking 
any sympathy for popular government. 2 In the rules of 
1797 the Wesleyan Methodists put themselves on official 
record with the following : " None of us shall, either in 
writing or conversation, speak lightly or irreverently of the 
government under which we live. The oracles of God com- 
mand us to be subject to the higher powers; and ' honour 
the King ' is there connected with the fear of God." A 
similar tone is evinced elsewhere. 3 If we are to believe 
official promulgations, the Methodists avoided assiduously 
any political affiliations. Number twelve of the Liverpool 
Minutes of 1820 seeks to impress upon the people that they 
"do not exist for purposes of party." 4 The conference 
never tires of impressing upon the ministers and people that 
their business is not of this world and demanding that they 
keep themselves apart from political agitation. 5 The prob- 
lem was fought out and decided, at least to the satisfaction 
of those in authority, in 1834, when J. R. Stephens, later 
famous in the Chartist movement, was suspended from the 

1 J. H. Rigg, in Enc. Brit., 9th ed., vol. xvi, p. 198. 

1 See his pamphlets, "Thoughts on Liberty," Works, vol. xi, pp. 34-46 ; 
"Free Thoughts on Public Affairs," vol. xi, pp. 14-34; "Thoughts 
Concerning the Origin of Power," vol. xi, pp. 46-53 ; and J. A. Faulk- 
ner's "Socialism of John Wesley," in Social Tracts for the Times. 

3 Minutes, vol. ii, p. 61 ; vol. iii, p. 303 ; vol. viii, pp. 236, 247, 371 ; vol. 
ix, p. 119, etc. 

4 Minutes of 1820; Williams, The Constitution and Polity of Wes- 
leyan Methodism (London, 1880) , appendix iii. 

5 Minutes, vol. viii, pp. 105, 237, 242 ; vol. x, p. 260. 



549] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 85 

connexion for actively associating himself with the move- 
ment in favor of separation of church and state. 1 At this 
time it was officially enunciated again that " Methodism 
does not exist for the purpose of party," and that " a Wes- 
leyan minister who takes a prominent political position and 
occupies his time and thought in furthering the ' purposes 
of party ' acts ' contrary to his peculiar calling and solemn 
engagements as a Methodist preacher '." 2 This policy was 
carried so far that the Wesleyan Methodists were the only 
dissenting church which would not cooperate in the Anti- 
Corn Law agitation. 3. 

With such conservative antecedents it was hardly likely 
that the Chartist movement would be very popular with the 
controlling element of Wesleyan Methodism. The reasons 
may be collected under three heads : 

I. Chartism was a democratic movement. From a church 
whose whole previous ecclesiastical existence had been largely 
devoted to the hopeless task of fighting off democratic in- 
novation, Chartism could hope for little favor. Those in 
the church, like Griffith, who were sympathetic toward 
Chartism, were also in favor of a more popular adminis- 
tration in church government. This in itself was enough 
to condemn Chartism with those in power. " Methodism," 
Jabez Bunting is reputed to have said, " hates democracy as 
much as it hates sin," 4 and its foes were not reticent in 

1 Minutes, vol. vii, pp. 417 et seq., 436; Gregory, Handbook, pp. 200 
et seq. 

3 In actual practice, however, they did not hesitate to interfere in sec- 
ular politics when their interests appeared to be endangered. Vide 
New History of Methodism, vol. i, pp. 402, 416 ; Pierce, The Ecclesias- 
tical Principles and Polity of the Wesleyan Methodists, 3d ed. (London, 
^^73), PP- 498 et seq.; Minutes, vol. ii, p. 185. 

8 Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol. i, pp. 233. 234. 

* Methodism as It Is, p. ii. 



86 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [550 

dwelling on this point. 1 Several historians have recog- 
nized this conservatism of the Methodists 2 and have testi- 
fied to its becalming influence upon political life, Taine go- 
ing so far as to claim that it saved England from a revolu- 
tion similar to the French. 3 This policy they were deter- 
mined to continue. 

II. Periods of political agitation had heretofore proved 
themselves detrimental to the propagation of the Gospel and 
to the welfare of the connexion. 4 In the opinion of the 
Wesleyan Methodists political agitation led " to the wreck of 
all piety." 5 During the Chartist period emigration was very 
heavy and seriously depleted the ranks of the Wesleyans. 6 
The years 1837, 1842, 1848 and 1852 showed actual de- 
creases in membership, although the total period from 1838- 
1848 gave an increase. 7 The Primitive Methodists, how- 
ever, a branch democratically administered, more than 
doubled their membership during the Chartist period. 8 The 
great agitations within the church, as has been pointed out, 
ran parallel with the democratic movements in secular 
policies, and the most serious of all with the Chartist move- 
ment, which undoubtedly influenced it. The Chartist 
churches also drew from Wesleyan Methodist membership, 

1 Supra, p. 22; Jubilee of the Methodist New Connexion (London, 
1848), p. 384. 

2 Lecky, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 637. 

3 New History of Methodism, vol. i, pp. 362, 371- 

* Avery, Memorials of Rev. John Henley (London, 1844), p. 389; 
Beech, The Good Soldier (London, 1848), p. 93. 

* Minutes, vol. iv, p. 414 ; vol. x, p. 560. 

6 Minutes, vol. viii, p. 308; vol. ix, pp. 114, 257, 268, 420, 427, 564, 575; 
vol. ix, pp. 128, 132, 310, 500. 
T In 1838 there were 296,800; in 1848, 338,860. 
8 For 1833 there were 48,421 ; in 1850, 104,710. 



55I ] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 87 

III. The attitude of the Chartists in regard to ecclesias- 
tical and religious matters was unacceptable. If the demo- 
cracy of Chartism was to be condemned how much more 
was its religious heterodoxy ! * The infidelity associated 
with the movement 2 was made much of, 3 while its good 
works went unnoticed. The doctrine of separation of 
church and state, 4 which was an actual platform of the Con- 
vention of 185 1 5 and a generally accepted belief among the 
Chartists, was not in much favor among the Wesleyans. 
The latter were rather " in favor of its being maintained," 8 
regarding the Establishment " as one of the main bulwarks 
of the Protestant faith." 7 The fate of Stephens, when he 
implicated the Methodists in the dispute, has been recounted. 8 
Furthermore the humor of such a typical Chartist battlecry 
as " More pigs and fewer parsons " 9 appealed as little to 
the Methodists 10 as to the Anglicans. 

The official pronouncements of the Wesleyan Methodists 
on the Chartist movement are to be found in the yearly pas- 
toral letters to the people, signed by the president and sec- 
retary of the conference. Although Chartism as such is 
not mentioned by name the implications are unmistakable. 
In these letters the Methodists are repeatedly urged to keep 

1 Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 9. 

2 Supra, pp. 14 et seq. 

3 Minutes, vol. ix, pp. 115, 125, 403, 410; vol. x, 112, 127, 137; Wes. 
Meth. Mag., 3d series, vol. xvii, p. 153. 

4 Supra, pp. 34 et seq. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 371. 

6 Bunting, Life of Jabez Bunting (London, 1878), p. 289. 

7 Minutes, vol. iv, p. 557. 

8 Supra, p. 18. 

9 Anti- Socialist Gazette, Dec. 1841, p. 36. 

10 Gregory, Sidelights of the Conflicts of Methodism (London, 1808), 
P- 344- 



88 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [552 

out of political agitations, 1 to remain loyal to the throne. 2 
to beware of democratic innovators (who are, of course, 
infidels) a and are assured that the " only effectual remedy 
for the ills and sufferings of our fallen world and our un- 
happy country is to be found in the glorious gospel of the 
blessed God." 4 While much concerned over the fact that 
" Some portions of our laboring population have been in- 
toxicated and deluded by the ravings of lawless demo- 
crats," 5 and " disloyal and disaffected men have been en- 
deavoring to allure the humbler classes of our fellow-coun- 
trymen to take part in their schemes," the writers yet 
have received " unspeakable pleasure " e in the attachment 
to the throne and constitution which their followers have 
evinced. 

The platform of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, the 
official organ of the church under the editorship of Thomas 
Jackson (1839-41) and George Cubitt (1842-50), corres- 
ponded on social questions closely to that of the ruling 
powers, as laid down in the letters. The same concern over 
such questions as slavery and Catholicism, and the same 
lack of comprehension and understanding of the more 
serious evils close at hand are seen here as in the minutes. 7 
The same inability or disinclination to discriminate between 
democracy and infidelity and the same distrust of democracy 
are apparent. While its policy was to " conscientiously 

1 Minutes, vol. viii, pp. 06, 105, 237 ; vol. ix, pp. 414 ; vol. x, p. 566. 

2 Minutes, vol. viii, pp. 247, 272, 371 ; vol. xi, p. 119. 
s Minutes, vol. ix, pp. 115, 403. 

* Minutes, vol. xi, p. 501. 

5 Minutes, vol. ix, p. 125. 

'Minutes, vol. xi, p. 119. 

1 Third series, vol. xvii, p. 153. Also vol. xix, p. 955; vol. xix, head- 
ings under Socialism; vol. xxiii, p. 155. 



553] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 89 

stand aloof from all politics " a yet an expression of 
opinion would inadvertently crop out. 2 Convinced that 
" Infidelity and democracy convert human beings into 
fiends ", 3 the Wesleymi Methodist Magazine offers Chris- 
tian education as a cure, for 

A people thoroughly educated on Christian principles can 
neither be the slave of a despot, nor the tools or puppets of 
some arbitrary government, on the one hand ; nor can they be 
restless, dissatisfied murmurers, insurrectionary anarchists, the 
instruments by which the political adventurers seek to gain 
power, whom he flatters and despises, and on whom, finally, 
in the hour of triumph he tramples. 4 

The traditional policy of the Wesleyan Methodists was 
loyally upheld by those who controlled their destinies during 
these years. Such men as Jabez Bunting, 5 John Beecham, 6 
James Dixon, 7 George Cubitt, Joseph Fowler, 8 John Han- 
nah, 9 Thomas Jackson, 10 Robert Newton, 11 and F. J. Jobson 12 
could find nothing to favor in Chartism. 

The preceding discussion, it should be borne in mind, has 
reference only to the Wesleyan Methodist Church and not 
to its numerous offshoots. These branches, as we have 
seen, developed primarily because they could not fit in with 

I Wes. Meth. Mag., 4th series, vol. iv, p. 463. 

a Ibid., vol. xviii, pp. 41, 313. s Ibid., vol. xvii, pp. 153, 295. 

4 Fourth series, vol. i, March, 1845, in "'Christian Retrospect." 

6 Jobson, A Tribute, pp. 70, 71 ; Bunting, Life of Bunting, vol. ii, p. 291. 
e Methodism as It Is, vol. ii, p. 881. 

7 Gregory, op. cit., p. 197 ; Dixon, Life of James Dixon, pp. 214, 222, 
225, 230. 

8 Gregory, op. cit., p. 328; Minutes, vol. xi, p. 118. 

9 Jobson, The Beloved Disciple, p. 107; Minutes, vol. ix, p. 125. 
10 Minutes, vol. viii, p. 37; Wes. Meth. Mag., vol. xix, p. 955. 

II Pastoral Letters for 1840 and 1842. 

12 Hurst, History of Methodism, vol. iii, p. 1360. 



go CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [554 

the conservative constitutional policy of the older church. 
An expanding democracy in the state demanded its coun- 
terpart in the church, and the result is seen in the attitude of 
such branches as the Primitive Methodists and the Metho- 
dist New Connexion. In a semi-official publication the 
latter church is found standing for " representation of all 
interests, freedom of commerce, voluntary support of re- 
ligion, liberty of thought, enlightened piety, Christian 
union, and strong solicitude for the welfare of the masses 
in humble life." * Perhaps the most noted of the ministers 
of the Methodist offshoots who became actively associated 
with the Chartist movement was James Scholefield, Bible 
Christian, of Manchester. In an attempt to break up an 
Anti-Corn Law meeting held in Manchester, March 19, 
1 84 1, he was nominated by the Chartists as chairman, 
but, as it was claimed that the mayor of the city also re- 
ceived the show of hands, both had desks on the platform. 2 
A couple of years later a Chartist conference of factory 
operatives was held in his chapel, and he was among those 
tried at the Lancaster assizes of March, 1843 f° r sedition 
and incitation to riot, but found not guilty. 3 

Furthermore, while the foregoing statements have been 
true of official Methodism and of an overwhelming majority 
of its ministers, there was undoubtedly in the rank and file a 
more liberal spirit pervading. The numerous agitations are 
a striking proof of the continued dissatisfaction. The 
radicals, while they condemned the ruling powers in the 
Methodist church, were free to admit that aid might be ex- 
pected from the ranks, if the people were only free agents. 

1 Jubilee of the Methodist New Connexion, pp. 386, 387. See also p. 
384. 
* Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol. i, p. 184. 
3 Gammage op. cit., pp. 232, 235, 427. 



555] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES g L 

Thus Archibald Prentice, Chartist and free-trader, said that 
many Wesleyans " were willing to give their aid in promot- 
ing cheapness and plenty " but for the hostile influence of the 
leaders. 1 The Eclectic Review 2 goes so far as to say that 

Had the people who compose the body free scope for the mani- 
festation of their sentiments, we cannot doubt that the influ- 
ence of Wesleyanism would be freely given to all measures for 
the reform of abuses, for the improvement of the physical 
and moral condition of the community, and for the abolition 
of every law and every institution which interferes with the 
fullest extension of our civil and religious liberties. But tied 
down as the Wesleyans are by laws which prevent them from 
moving hand or foot, and by usages which beget a servile spirit, 
the country and the legislature must receive their notions of the 
state of opinions in the Wesleyan church from the conference 
and its commissions. Nor can we expect that those who have 
tried to build ever upon the foundation of this voluntary prin- 
ciple, so compact a structure of priestly authority in their own 
favor, will ever exert their political influence in support of 
any line of state policy, which might afterwards be quoted 
as a precedent for the entire submission of this lordly hierarchy. 

During the Chartist period Methodist discontent with the 
despotic administration of Bunting and his followers grew 
apace. Finally, in 1849, upon the expulsion of Everett, 
Dunn and Griffith, an agitation was started which in its 
form and procedure was remarkably similar to that of 
Chartism, even to the phraseology of its war-cries. One of 
the demands was for " The Bible, the Whole Bible and 
nothing but the Bible ". These demands in the form of 
a petition were called " The People's Declaration ". 3 Such 

1 Prentice, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 233, 234. 

2 August, 1846, article " Methodism as It Is." 

3 Wesleyan Vindicator, p. 120. 



9 2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [556 

methods of arousing the people were evidently successful, 
for the followers of Bunting and the old system were 
strong in their denunciation of them. The following quo- 
tation will show how strikingly the method resembled that 
of the Chartists. 

To succeed in this attempt [said the Wesley an Vindicator], 
Christian agitators resorted to the most unchristian means. 
Public meetings were called, composed of all classes of the 
British community. Not only deluded Methodists, but 
worldly politicians, and notoriously ungodly men and women 
were appealed to for judgment on Wesleyan rule and govern- 
ment. Calumny, slander, and reviling, were poured forth in 
concert upon the most eminent and beloved ministers. A 
monster Petition and " Bill of Rights " as it was called was 
hawked about in parts, which were afterwards to be put 
together, and to astonish the Connexion by the vast amount 
of signatures it should have secured. Secret pledges were 
received to " stand or fall " by the leading agitators, and their 
plans for Wesleyan Reform ; and the meetings held by pre- 
tended Delegates to discuss the questions at issue and to secure 
the appointment of "A Committee of Privileges for the 
People " to care for their rights and liberties. 1 

The reformers were accused of associating with themselves 
dissenters and political agitators of all kinds, 2 including 
Chartists, and there is every reason to believe the accusa- 
tion was true. " Red Republicans " and " Chartists " were 
frequent epithets 3 used by the discomfited members of the 
old church to describe their seceding brethren. Additional 
force was given to the accusation by the fact that Wil- 
liam Griffith, one of the three leaders in the Wesleyan 
Reform agitation, " was politically a radical of the most 

1 Wesleyan Vindicator, p. 207. 

2 Ibid., p. 21. *Ibid., pp. 30, 67, 86. 



557] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 93 

extreme type, and took no pains to conceal his principles." * 
During the agitation he was continually referred to as a 
Chartist but so far from resenting this he apparently gloried 
in it. " If I am a Chartist," he said, 2 " I got my principles 
from the Bible. That book is my political pocket-book. I 
hold no opinions but what I find in the book of God." In 
another place 3 ' he expresses himself as follows: "As long 
as I believe in the Bible, a Chartist of that school I will be, 
and I will teach the workingman to think that he is a man 
and that it is his own fault if he is not as noble, as respect- 
able as any man who walks the face of the earth." " His 
political opinions," he said, " were all drawn from the 
Bible, and he must have a new Bible before he could have a 
new political creed." i 

If the attitude of Wesleyan Methodism toward political 
matters was conservative no such charge can be brought 
forward in regard to its philanthropy. The great out- 
burst of philanthropy which accompanied the origin of 
Methodism 5 had enough vitality to extend itself partially 
through the so-called " middle period " of the church. This 
benevolence, combined with a religious generosity in regard 
to tenets of salvation 8 — regarding all who loved God as the 
elect, — put enough heart into the followers of Wesley to 
effect some practical results which influenced indirectly their 
political life. The most notable of this philanthropic work 
must be reckoned the activity of the Methodists in factory 
reform. Richard Oastler, Michael Thomas Sadler and 
Rev. J- R. Stephens, the men who made factory reform a 

1 Bunting, Life of Jabez Bunting, vol. ii, p. 346. 

2 Methodism as It Is, vol. ii, p. 415. 

3 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 241, 242. 

4 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 343. 

B North, Early Methodist Philanthropy (New York, 1914). 
6 Holyoake, Life of J. R. Stephens (London, 1881), p. 78. 



94 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [558 

great cause, were all nurtured in the Methodist Church. 1 
The agitation for the ten-hour bill and factory reform, 
which these three instituted, was a distinct contributing force 
to the organization of the Chartist movement, 2 as was also 
the opposition to the New Poor Law which found its 
mouthpiece in Stephens and Oastler. 3 

It was only a step from the opposition to the New Poor 
Law to Chartism, and, although Stephens reiterated that he 
was no Chartist, 4 he was a frequent speaker at Chartist 
meetings. At Kersall Moor he seconded a resolution in 
favor of the Charter and he was elected a representative 
from Ashton to the Convention of 1839 5 which he attended. 6 
He gave momentary adherence to the Charter because no 
other course seemed open whereby the people could be 
helped. 7 Tory as he was, his Toryism was of that brand 
which considered the welfare of the people the most im- 
portant issue. 8 The earnestness with which he believed this 
often led him into the most extravagant and inflammatory 
language, entirely unrestrained by prudence. Incitement to 
the use of arms was the distinguishing burden of many 
of his orations. 9 Arrested on December 27, 1838, on three 
separate charges of attending illegal meetings and using 

1 Holyoake, op. cit., pp. 78 et seq. 

2 Tildsley, Die Entstehung und die okonomischen Grunds'dtze der 
Chartistenbewegung, pp. 16 et seq. 

3 Ibid., p. 28. 

4 Holyoake, Life of J. R. Stephens, pp. 146, 155, 171 ; Lovett, op. cit., 
P- 195. 

6 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 57, 59, 61, 62, 92, 06. 

6 Lovett, op. cit., p. 207 ; Holyoake, op. cit, p. 143. 

7 Holyoake, op. cit., p. 232. 

8 Ibid., pp. 18 et seq. 

9 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 56, 95; Lovett, op. cit., p. 291. 



559] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 95 

seditious language, 1 he was sentenced in August, 1839, to 
eighteen months' imprisonment, thus having the " honour 
of being the first man on whom the government sought to 
wreak the vengeance of the law " 2 for participation in the 
Chartist movement. One of the best known and popular 
leaders at the time of his arrest, he severed himself from 
Chartism 8 upon his release but remained throughout his 
life active in social work. 

Other prominent Chartists also had their first religious 
affiliation with the Methodists. Lovett's mother was a most 
devoted Methodist, 4 while he for a while belonged to the 
Bryanites or Bible Christians. 5 Thomas Cooper had acted 
as a local preacher for the Methodists in Lincoln but was 
suspended for protesting at the appointment of a super- 
intendent, 6 voluntarily resigned from the connection and 
soon drifted into free thought. Joseph Barker, another 
erratic genius prominent in Chartism, started with the Meth- 
odists. 7 Educated at Methodist schools, he served his ap- 
prenticeship with them as a local preacher but forsook the 
Wesleyans for the Methodist New Connexion. From this 
branch he was expelled in 1841 for denying the divine ap- 
pointment of baptism. With him seceded twenty-nine 
churches and 4,348 members. 8 He likewise soon drifted 
to free-thought, but after a stormy career as a political and 
religious radical he returned to Christianity. 9 

1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 48. 
* Ibid., pp. 99, 100. 

3 Holyoake, op. cit., p. 228. 

4 Lovett, op. cit., p. 7. 

6 Ibid., p. 22. 

•Cooper, Life of Thomas Cooper, pp. 101, 102. 

7 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. iii, p. 205. 

8 New History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 525. 

9 Barker, Modern Skepticism: a Life Story, passim. 



96 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [560 

III. THE OTHER NONCONFORMIST CHURCHES 

Although the membership of the other Nonconformist 
churches was recruited largely from the bourgeoisie, there 
was, broadly speaking, among both pastor and people of these 
denominations a more tolerant attitude toward a further 
extension of the franchise than that evinced by either the 
State Church or the Wesleyan Methodists. The committee 
appointed to organize the Complete Suffrage Movement and 
call the conference reported a constantly growing class, 
" which included many ministers of religion ", of those who 
had 

long been dissatisfied with the manifest injustice of any system 
of representation that excluded the majority from all share in 
their own government, but who have hitherto kept aloof from 
taking any active share in public affairs, partly because they 
wish to avoid the strife of men and tongues and partly because 
no practical remedy had yet been offered which there appeared 
much chance of attaining. 1 

The committee further reported that " Nearly, if not more 
than two hundred ministers of religion, of almost all de- 
nominations, have signed the declaration or memorial ", and 
continued with an optimism hardly warranted, " there is 
every reason to believe that the greater number of those not 
endowed by the state will do so when called on." 2 

While the cooperation of so many dissenting ministers in 
the holding of a Complete Suffrage Conference was one 
of the most significant facts in the whole problem of the 
relationship between the Chartist movement. and the church, 
it should not be overestimated. The signing of the memor- 
ial did not bind them to endorse the proceedings of the 
conference nor did it make Chartists of them. Complete 

1 Proceedings of the Conference, p. 5. 2 Ibid., p. 7. 



5 6l] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 97 

suffrage was, while the most important, only one of the 
Six Points. The state of mind of the average dissenting 
minister, liberally inclined, was nowhere better expressed 
than in a speech delivered by the Rev. Andrew Marshall 
in Edinburgh on December 16, 1840, and later published 
as an Address to the Dissenting Ministers of Scotland 
(United Secession Synod). The working classes, said 
Marshall, have long since been alienated from the State 
Church and have long regarded its clergy as their enemies. 
They are now coming to look upon the dissenting ministers 
in the same light. It is the duty of the latter, as the best 
qualified, to stem the current and save the masses to the 
church and to morality, peace and order. The only way 
that this can be done is to show some sympathy toward their 
efforts for an extended franchise. This the ministers 
should do, not by political agitation for the Charter 
nor by making speeches or holding meetings, but simply 
by avowing " on all proper occasions " that they were " in 
favor of a more extended suffrage ".* As to the Chartists, 
he condemns their methods and states that there are prob- 
ably few dissenting ministers anywhere more obnoxious to 
them than himself, several having left his church because 
of his attitude. 2 This speech when delivered caused great 
excitement in the meeting and the interruptions were so 
frequent that Marshall had to stop before he had finished 
it. 3 It expressed, nevertheless, the prevailing sentiment 
of those ministers who signed the Complete Suffrage Me- 
morial. The Nonconformist ministers, as they were for 
the most part responsible only to their own congregations, 
were often in a position to enter actively into political agi- 

1 Marshall, The Duty of Attempting to Reconcile the Unenfranchised 
with the Enfranchised Classes, p. 14. 

2 Ibid., p. 10. 

3 Ibid., p. 15. 



98 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [562 

tation if they could carry a majority of their people with 
them, and some felt themselves in duty bound to do so. 

The difference between the political attitude of the leaders 
of Wesleyan Methodism and of Congregationalism was not 
very great. Although it is true that several Congregation- 
alists participated in the Anti-Corn Law Conference, 1 but 
few of the leaders, especially those in London, would enter- 
tain for a moment the idea of the denomination, as such, 
concerning itself in political matters. This feeling was 
carried to the extent that even in the matter of the separa- 
tion of church and state any active political agitation was 
firmly opposed by such men as Conder and Vaughan, who 
were able to obtain the support of the Congregational Maga- 
zine and the official promulgations of the Congregational 
Union. 2 

The conservatism of the majority and of the London 
leaders, however, was decidedly distasteful to a small but 
active and growing minority in the provinces. Unable 
longer to keep silence under what was considered " the be- 
trayal of their sacred trust ", 3 this group, with the aid of 
the advocates of voluntaryism of all denominations, deter- 
mined upon the establishment of a weekly newspaper in 
London, "having for its aim the faithful and persistent 
exposition of the principles of civil and religious liberty." * 
Consequently, on April 14, 1841, the first issue of the Non- 
conformist appeared under the editorship of Edward Miall, 
who quickly developed into one of the most brilliant jour- 
nalists of the time- Although proposed principally to give 
voice to the Disestablishment movement, the Nonconform- 

1 Waddington, Congregational History, Continuation to 1850, pp. 557 
et seq. 

2 Ibid., pp. 548, 551, 553 et seq., 572, 574 et seq. 

3 Ibid., p. 551. 

4 Miall, Life of Edward Miall, p. 38. 



563] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 99 

ist soon became the exponent of liberalism on all lines. The 
question of the suffrage was taken up with characteristic 
vigor in a series of editorials, the influence of which was so 
great that it became the official organ of the National Com- 
plete Suffrage Union. 1 Its success was immediate, its circu- 
lation jumping from a few hundreds to two thousand at the 
end of the first year, 2 showing that the radicalism of Miall 
was far from offensive to many Nonconf ormists. Although 
warmly welcomed and frequently quoted by the Chartist 
press and by liberal papers of all shades of opinion, it en- 
countered great opposition in religious circles. " The 
authorities were clearly against it," said Miall, while " all 
mention of it was studiously avoided in those periodical 
publications which Dissenters are wont to consult." 3 Natur- 
ally it was not long before the Nonconformist met direct op- 
position from the Congregational Magazine* and the powers 
in the church. 5 Fortunately Miall found an ally in the 
Eclectic Review, edited by Dr. Price, which, while not 
going so far in its political views as the Nonconformist, 
yet put itself unhesitatingly on the side of both political and 
religious reforms. 6 The aim of Dr. Price was " to win the 
mass of the people by advocating their cause in relation to 
political rights." 7 

To counteract the influence of the Eclectic, Vaughan and 
his associates of the conservative Congregational school de- 
cided a new periodical was necessary, and the British Quar- 
terly Review was the result. s The number of Congrega- 

1 Miall, Life of Edward Miall, p. 87. See infra, p. 113. 

2 Ibid., p. 54. 

3 Ibid., p. 54. 

4 Waddington, op. cit., p. 572. 5 Ibid., p. 553. 

6 April, 1843. 

7 Waddington, op. cit., p. 578. 

8 Ibid., pp. 557, 578. 



IO o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [564 

tional journals was also augmented all this time by Dr. 
John Campbell (1795-1867) who was in turn editor of the 
Christian Witness, the Christian Penny Magazine, and the 
British Banner. Campbell was inclined to take a middle 
course. While believing that there was no great discontent 
in the country, 1 he was yet willing to advocate a reformation 
of the House of Lords and triennial parliaments. Uni- 
versal suffrage, however, was entirely out of the question; 
the utmost that could " rationally be expected, or prudently 
desired ", said he, " is Household Suffrage." 2 

In this manner each type of political thought had repre- 
sentatives upon the Congregational press. While the con- 
servatives were decidedly predominant in official circles, 
the radicalism of the Miall school was slowly forcing its 
way to the front and was destined in later years to affect 
greatly the policies of the denomination. 

Of all the Nonconformist denominations, with the pos- 
sible exception of the Unitarians, the Baptists probably 
showed the most sympathy toward the democratic schemes 
of the Chartists. This was partially due to the fact that 
the whole tone of the church was more radical than that, 
for instance, of the Congregational. This was excellently 
illustrated during the effort for the separation of church and 
state. While only a small advanced party of Congrega- 
tionalists were in favor of an active political campaign for 
this reform, an overwhelming majority of Baptists were 
committed to it. At the Conference of the Liberation So- 
ciety in 1844 the Baptists were the only denomination to 
send delegates. 3 In a similar manner the Eclectic Review, 

1 Reformer's Almanac, p. 200. 

2 Ibid., p. 205. 

3 Carlile, Story of the English Baptists, p. 227. 



565] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES ioi 

a liberal paper favorable to an increase in the suffrage, 1 was 
the literary periodical of only the radical wing of the Con- 
gregationalists, but of the great majority of the Baptists. 

Still more radical than the Eclectic Review were the Non- 
conformist, largely supported by the Baptists, and the Church 
Baptist Penny Magazine founded in 1848. 2 The liberal in- 
fluence of these papers was greatly augmented by the well- 
known advanced political views of many of the leading 
ministers of the denomination. Among these men were 
George Dawson, 3 one of the most famous of nineteenth- 
century English preachers ; J. P. Mursell, 4 prominent in the 
Complete Suffrage Conference; Eustace Giles, one of the 
founders of the Baptist Union and one of the best friends 
the Chartists had amongst the middle class; John Jenkin- 
son of Kettering, active in Chartism ; 5 and William Jack- 
son of Manchester, who was sentenced to eighteen months 
imprisonment for " maliciously conspiring and inciting the 
people of this country to make riots, to arm with weapons 
of offense, and with divers other acts for the promotion of 
rebellion." 6 The Baptists were also fortunate in having 
at their head such men as Dr. Steane who were willing to 
take the lead in social reform. 

Carlile, a leading Baptist historian, goes so far as to say 
that the sympathies of the Baptists for Chartism were 
expressed by Thomas Cooper. 7 Although this is an exag- 

1 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference of Representatives of 
the Middle and Working Classes, p. 7; Eclectic Magazine, April, 1843. 

2 The Republican, p. 40, favorably reviews it, saying " that its political 
tendency is toward Democracy." 

3 Afterwards left the Baptists and started an independent church. 
* English Chartist Circular, p. 181. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 37. 

6 Ibid., pp. 178, 179; also 152. 

7 Carlile, Story of the English Baptists, pp. 224, 225. 



IQ2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [566 

geration, there is no doubt that Chartist principles made 
considerable headway in the denomination. O'Neill ob- 
tained a large part of the membership of his Christian 
Chartist Church from the Baptists, 1 and Disraeli in his 
Chartist novel makes one of the inner circle of conspirators 
a Baptist teacher. 2 It is also interesting to note that two of 
the leading Chartist agitators, Cooper 3 and O'Neill, 4 later 
became ministers in that denomination, as did also Charles 
Vince. 5 

In proportion to their membership the Quakers had un- 
doubtedly surpassed all denominations of English Chris- 
tians in their philanthropy. The names of Joseph Lancaster 
and William Allen in education, Clarkson and Gurney in 
the anti-slavery movement, and Elizabeth Fry in prison 
reform, are sufficient to indicate in a slight degree this fact. 
It was not a mere accident that four of the six partners 
whom Owen associated with himself in the New Lanark 
scheme in 18 13 were Quakers. 6 

The emphasis upon benevolence was encouraged in the 
official promulgations of the society, issued at the Yearly 
Meetings in London 7 which are filled with wholesome 
advice upon all sorts of subjects including the con- 
duct of business. In these epistles the society does not hesi- 
tate to state boldly its detestation of war, 8 of the slave 

1 Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 90. 
' Disraeli, Sybil, p. 375. 

3 Cooper, Life of Cooper, pp. 380, 381. 

4 Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, p. 402. 

5 Richard, Memoirs of Sturge, p. 328. 

6 Podmore, Life of Owen, vol. i, p. 97. Owen, however, accuses 
Allen, one of the four, of secretly trying to undermine his views and 
authority. Owen's Life, vol. i, p. 141. 

7 Christian Discipline, pp. 125-130. 

8 Ibid., pp. 153, 158. 



567] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 10 ^ 

trade, 1 of oaths, and of tithes and all ecclesiastical assump- 
tion, 2 yet desires it to be known that the Quakers, where 
conscience is not infringed, are anxious to be considered 
amongst the " quiet in the land " and in full subjection to 
the civil government." While ambitious that the members 
should cooperate in every benevolent scheme, the epistles 
are in great fear lest these endeavors may involve them in 
party politics which endanger the virtues they hold dear 4 
and have a tendency to lead them " away from that patient 
exercise of spirit and that quiet self-examination, which 
are not only conducive but necessary to a growth in grace." 5 
Notwithstanding the frequent warnings of the Yearly 
Meetings many Quakers felt it their duty actively and 
strenuously to enter the arena of party politics in behalf 
of the Factory Acts and in opposition to the Corn Laws. 6 
It was not at all illogical, then, that when the attempt was 
made to reconcile the middle and lower classes on a 
basis of complete suffrage, Joseph Sturge, the most noted 
philanthropist of his time and a Quaker, should be chosen 
almost by tacit consent to lead the movement. The honesty 
of his motives was too obvious to be questioned by either 
Chartist or Tory, while the unselfishness with which he had 
previously cooperated in philanthropic labors assured for 
any scheme which he might advocate at least a hearing from 
all parties. 7 With the same enthusiasm he had shown 

1 Christian Discipline, pp. 159-163. 2 Ibid., pp. 137 et seq. 

3 Ibid., pp. 132 et seq. * Epistles, vol. ii, p. 303. 

5 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 314; also vol. ii, pp. 301, 332. 

6 Emmott, The Story of Quakerism, p. 179. 

T " In such case your name is the very best in all England to head the 
list. I say this without compliment, or even views of doing you justice, 
but simply with an eye to policy. You have so much of established 
reputation to fall back upon that your standing with the middle class 
would not be endangered by a course which might peril the character 
and endanger the usefulness of most others. You should carry with 



IG 4 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [568 

in the emancipation agitation, Sturge threw himself into 
the activities of the Complete Suffrage Union, notwith- 
standing the fact that this political move was observed with 
sorrow and disapproval by many members of his own re- 
ligious society. 1 Among the delegates at the Complete 
Suffrage Conference was the Quaker, John Bright, des- 
tined to do even more than Sturge in the cause of democ- 
racy. Among the Chartists, Vincent seems to be the only 
one of prominence who inclined toward the Quakers, 2 al- 
though George Binns was of Quaker parentage. 3 

The bugbear of Catholicism was ever present in the minds 
of Englishmen during the first half of the century. 4 Poli- 
ticians had but to raise the cry of papal aggression, and 
Churchmen and Dissenters would both for the time being 
forget their differences in the face of this greater danger. 
It was consequently to be expected that in the heat of re- 
crimination some one would endeavor to prove a connec- 
tion between the Chartist movement and Catholicism. It 
so turned out and the charge was not infrequently made. 
It had a touch of plausibility about it because several of 
the leaders, like O'Connor and O'Brien, were Irishmen. 
Even O'Connell in the early days of Chartism had pro- 
fessed to give it his support. 5 But O'Connell soon changed 
his stand and became a bitter opponent. 6 O'Neill, another 

you the philanthropists of the religious world, or at least neutralize 
their opposition, and without their aid no moral victory can be achieved 
in this age and country." Letter to Sturge from Cobden, Nov. 21, 
1841. Memoirs, p. 299. 

1 Richard, Memoirs of Sturge, p. 330. 

1 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. lviii, p. 358. 

3 Gammage, op. cit., p. 32. 

* New History of Methodism, vol. i, pp. 349, 399; Methodist Minutes, 
vol. ix, pp. 103, in, 112. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 6. e Ibid., p. 7. 



5 6 9 ] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES IC >5 

Chartist leader with an Irish name, ended his career as a 
Baptist minister, while neither O'Connor nor O'Brien could 
be reasonably accused of being Jesuits 1 by any one who 
had chanced to read the fiery denunciations of priestcraft 
which frequently appeared in their periodicals. 2 

The Catholics, like the Protestants, were not slow in 
making their influence felt in politics if their interests 
demanded it. The difference was that they wasted no time 
in pious protestations that it was no business of theirs 
as men of God. 3 Catholicism in Ireland had always been 
recognized as a leading influence in politics, and this influ- 
ence Catholics did not hesitate to exert in England- Several 
Catholic priests attended and addressed the Anti-Corn Law 
Conference, and one, Rev. Thaddeus O'Malley, the famous 
Irish radical, became prominent in the latter stages of the 
Chartist movement, being elected delegate from Notting- 
ham * to the National Assembly which met in London on 
May i, 1848. 

The poorest and most degraded part of the population of 
many of the English cities was composed largely of Irish 
immigrants, who were Catholics, of course, and often Char- 
tists. But the participation of Catholicism in the Chartist 
movement was always casual and incidental, never in any 
way general or official. 

With the adoption of more radical political views came 
the transition on the part of many Chartists to more radical 
religious views. Rev. Henry Solly and Rev. Joseph Barker, 
both leading Chartists, left the Presbyterian Church and the 

1 Stowell, No Revolution. 

1 The Movement, p. 303 (Aug. 24, 1844), reprints article from North- 
ern Star. For O'Brien, see The Social Reformer, pp. 29, 84, and 
McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, pp. 149, 150. 

3 Meth. Min., vol. viii, p. 105. 

4 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 322, 324. 



io 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [570 

Methodist New Connexion, respectively, for Unitarianism. 
As with the ministers so with the workingmen. The wide 
range of thought allowed to Unitarians and the cultural 
emphasis in their teaching were very appealing to the Chart- 
ists and are excellently portrayed in Alton Locke. 1 A cor- 
respondent of The People writes of a village in Scotland 
(Tillicoultry) in which Unitarianism was the popular reli- 
gion, due largely to the exertions of Mr. Browning, the 
Unitarian minister, who was a " Chartist, a Teetotaler, a 
Peace Advocate, and a true friend of Education ". W. J. 
Fox, noted Anti-Corn Law lecturer and political reformer, 
was perhaps the leading Unitarian minister in England. 

The Tillicoultry correspondent, while admitting that not 
a few Unitarian Christians endeavor to make the profes- 
sion of " their boasted recognition of the brotherhood of 
man " the standard for their political practice, yet fears that 
the habit is not so general as could be wished. He goes on 
to say that in the ten years he has been a Unitarian he has 
won more converts than many ministers and that he has suc- 
ceeded best among the Chartists. This success he attributes 
chiefly to the fact that he endeavored " to make Christianity 
a practical thing ". 2 

Barker felt the opposition of the conservative Unitarians 
in an attack made upon him by the Inquirer, a Uni- 
tarian paper, in which he was characterized as " a destroyer 
of peace and order " and " an organ of discord and vio- 
lence ", whose object was to stir up enmity among his fellow 
citizens and set the poor at war with the rich. 3 To this tirade 
Barker replied that the Inquirer no longer represented the 

1 Kingsley, Alton Locke, chap. xxii. 

2 The People, vol. i, p. 22. 

3 Ibid., p. 22. 



571 ] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 10 y 

feelings of the majority of the Unitarians as it had under 
the editorship of William Hincks, but only of a small class 
of the less enlightened. To the group who were offended 
with his political proceedings and who believed that he was 
bringing dishonor upon the denomination, 1 he replied in a 
series of five articles 2 in which he sought to justify himself 
and vindicate Chartism in a discussion of each of its points. 
If the testimony of Barker is to be considered at all trust- 
worthy it would seem that the Six Points found favor with 
a large class, if not a majority, of his denomination. In 
respect to this question as to many others of this discussion 
the sources are too meagre to allow of any definite statement. 

IV. SCOTLAND 

With the Scottish church torn by a religious strife which 
resulted in the secession of 1843 an d the formation of the 
Free Church of Scotland there was little chance of the 
Chartist cause receiving much attention from either the 
wrought-up clergy who seceded or those who remained 
in the Establishment. The latter received, as in England, 
only abuse and condemnation from the Chartist press 3 and 
on the Chartist platform. 4 

The Established Church of Scotland did, however, boast 
of at least one political radical who stayed with it at the 
time of the secession. This was the famous Patrick Brews- 
ter (1788-1859) of Paisley. Noted among the free traders 
as the only member of the Established Church of Scotland 
who attended the Conference of Ministers at Manchester, 
he was equally beloved by the Chartists for his active and 

1 The People, vol. i, p. 4. 

2 Ibid., pp. 4, 13, 28, 49, 57. 

3 Chartist Circular, p. 109. 

* Memoranda of the Chartist Agitation in Dundee, pp. 34, 38; Gam- 
mage, op. cit., p. 81. 



io 8 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [572 

unceasing cooperation. As early as the fall of 1838 he had 
assumed a leading position amongst the Moral Force 
Chartists of Scotland, and was on this point a strong anta- 
gonist of Feargus O'Connor, whom he thought an honest 
man but mistaken as to methods. 1 Brewster was a member 
of both the Complete Suffrage Convention and the Scottish 
Chartist Convention of 1842. As an advocate of teetotal- 
ism, 2 abolition of the slave trade, repeal of the Corn Laws, 
a national system of education, and the Charter, his whole 
life was a continual succession of disputes. The preach- 
ing of a series of sermons on Chartism and Militarism 
aroused the antagonism of the Paisley authorities. In con- 
junction with the Glasgow Presbytery they petitioned the 
Synod that he be removed on the charge of having preached a 
sermon in the Christian Chartist Church in Glasgow and 
thereby " giving countenance to a body of men, whose prin- 
ciples were unchristian and demoralizing ", conduct " highly 
censurable in any minister of the Gospel, involving a viola- 
tion of the Ecclesiastical order, a contempt of decency, a pro- 
fanation of the Lord's day, a desecration of the Christian 
ministry, and a mischievous encouragement of a system of 
disorganization and misrule both in Church and State." s 
The charge was dismissed but the Presbytery soon found op- 
portunity for further complaint on the ground that Brewster 
had libelled the military. For this offense he was illegally 
suspended for a year, notwithstanding a memorial signed 
by 1,600 of his parishioners denying the charges and ap- 
proving the discourses. The proceedings were eventually 
cancelled. 4 In the charges he had been accused of " per- 

1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 84, 198. 

2 Chartist Circular, pp. 284, 285. 

3 The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses, p. 410. 
* Ibid., p. 412. 



573] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 1Q g 

version and prostitution of the ordinance of preaching " 
by introducing into his discourses, " worldly and secular 
politics and affairs ", particularly " corn laws, poor laws 
and the administration thereof, statements and sentiments 
calculated to render those to whom they are addressed dis- 
contented with their condition and to excite their passions". 1 
Always ready to do battle for the wrongs of the people, 
Brewster carried his fight in behalf of the poor even into 
the Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 2 His ministry in 
Paisley covered about forty-one years, 3 

Although the Chartists naturally expected little sympathy 
from the Established Church, they did on at least two occa- 
sions, endeavor to interest the secessionists, believing that 
men with liberal ideas as to church government might be 
affected similarly in regard to secular government. Added 
force was given to this idea by the fact that Rev. John 
Ritchie of Edinburgh, a universal suffragist, was a leader 
in the secession movement. Consequently the Universal 
Suffrage Central Committee of Scotland addressed a 
memorial to the Relief Synod 4 and also to the United Seces- 
sion Synod 5 urging upon the members in the name of all 
that Christianity stood for to be " neither neutral nor in- 
active in this great and holy warfare of principle " 8 It is 
not recorded that these memorials made any impression or 
met with any success. 

1 The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses, p. 416. 

2 Ibid., p. 421. 

3 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. vi, p. 304. 

4 Chartist Circular, p. 141. 

5 Ibid., p. 161. 

6 Ibid., p. 141. 



CHAPTER IV 

Positive Contribution of the Church ro the 
Chartist Movement 

i. the work of the clergy 

Having attempted to diagnose the attitude of the aver- 
age English workingman towards Christianity as exempli- 
fied in the British churches and having examined the gen- 
eral feeling on the part of the churches towards the Chartist 
movement, it remains in the final chapter only to gather the 
threads together and to put into concrete form the actual 
contributions of the church to the agitation for the People's 
Charter and " the first workingmen's party of modern 
times "- 1 Although " both chapel and church were largely 
hostile to the Chartist movement ", 2 there was, as we have 
seen, on the part of not a few individuals officially connected 
with organized Christianity a sympathy for a more complete 
democracy and a willingness to work and suffer in the cause. 

The most obvious way to be of service was to aid in 
public meetings and, especially in the early years of the 
movement, it was not an infrequent spectacle to behold min- 
isters of various denominations gracing the stage at the 
huge open-air gatherings and torch-light processions. Rev. 
Arthur S. Wade of London, clergyman of the Established 
Church and one of the deputies of the London Working- 
men's Association appointed to attend a Glasgow demon- 

1 Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Intro., p. xxx. 

2 Hall. op. cit., p. 173. 

^0 [574 



575 ] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH Iir 

stration, 1 addressed a meeting estimated at 200,ooo, 2 and 
in September of the same year was one of the speakers at 
the Palace Yard meeting in Birmingham. 3 Patrick Brewster 
of the Scotch Establishment did not confine his Chartist 
discourses to his pulpit but was a frequent speaker at Chart- 
ist gatherings, thereby incurring the wrath of O'Connor, 
whose Physical Force ravings he strenuously opposed, es- 
pecially in a speech at Carlton Hill, Edinburgh. 4 Rev. W. 
J. Fox, Unitarian, was a speaker with Wade at the Palace 
Yard meeting, while Rev. J. C. Meeke, Unitarian, and Rev. 
John Jenkinson of Kettering addressed the Chartists of 
Northampton in 1838 from the same platform. 5 Rev. 
William Hill, Swedenborgian and O'Connor's right-hand 
man, was a prominent orator during the entire period. 
Joseph Barker came forward as a Chartist lecturer during 
the revival of 1848. 6 J. R. Stephens, however, was un- 
doubtedly the most noted minister in any way connected 
with the movement. 7 Many others were occasional speakers. 
The prominence of these ministers in the cause of reform 
led the Chartists in several instances to elect them to official 
standing in the movement. To the first and most famous 
convention which met in London in February, 1839, one 
clergyman of the Church of England and one Dissenting 
minister were elected. 8 Dr. Wade represented Nottingham 9 
and took a leading part in the convention until he with many 

1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 21. 

2 Ibid., p. 20. 

3 Ibid., p. 47. i 

4 Ibid., p. 84. 
' Ibid., p. 37. 

6 Ibid., p. 323. 

7 Ibid., pp. 56 et seq. 

8 Lovett, op. cit., p. 201. 

9 Gammage, op. cit., p. 68. 



II2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [576 

others, resigned when the Physical Force party became 
dominant. 1 Stephens was elected for Ashley 2 but later 
resigned, 3 although he seems to have been present at the 
convention. 4 To the National Assembly which met on May 
1, 1848, Joseph Barker and Thaddeus O'Malley, the latter 
a Catholic priest and political radical, were elected to repre- 
sent Leeds and Nottingham respectively. 5 At the London 
Convention of 185 1, Rev. A. Duncanson, Congregationalist, 
represented the Paisley district. Patrick Brewster repre- 
sented Paisley in the Scottish Convention of 1842. On the 
Birmingham provisional committee for the Complete Suf- 
frage Conference of 1842 was the Rev. James Alsop, while 
the following ministers were listed as attending : J. Jenkin- 
son, of Kettering; Noah Jones, Derby; Charles Kirkland, 
Newark; Edward Miall, Stoke Newington; T. Harwood 
Morgan, Stourbridge; J. P. Mursell, Leicester ; John Ritchie, 
Edinburgh; Henry Solly, Yeovil and Bridport; Thomas 
Spencer, Bath; William Thomas, Fairfield, and Arthur S. 
Wade, London. 6 

Not only were ministers occasional representatives to 
Chartist conventions but in several instances the conven- 
tions were held in churches. The Scotch Chartist Conven- 
tion which met August 15, 1841, at Glasgow, met in the 
Universalist Church, 7 and the Scotch convention of 1842 
was also held in a church. 8 The conference of operatives 
held in Manchester on August 12th, which preceded the 

1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 156. 

3 Ibid., p. 62. s I6id., p. 67. 

* Lovett, op. cit., p. 207 ; Holyoake, Life of Stephens, p. 143. 

5 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 322, 324. 

6 Minutes of the Conference, p. 41. See below for discussion of Com- 
plete Suffrage Conference, p. no. 

7 Chartist Circular, preface, p. iv. 

8 Ibid., p. 511. 



$yy] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH II3 

Lancashire riots of 1842, seems to have been held at the 
chapel of Scholefield. 1 

In the field of journalism some notable work was ac- 
complished in the cause of democracy by ministers. William 
Hill, until his quarrel with O'Connor, edited the Northern 
Star, the most popular of the Chartist periodicals. Edward 
Miall permitted the Nonconformist to be used as the official 
organ of the Complete Suffrage Union and brilliantly up- 
held in its columns the principles of universal suffrage. 
Joseph Barker was the publisher of The People, a weekly 
periodical with a circulation of 20,000, and The Reformer's 
Almanac. J. R. Stephens edited The Champion, a radical 
paper for workingmen, although hardly an advocate of 
Chartism. 

Not only as editors did many of the ministers assist the 
Chartists but as pamphleteers as well. Some of the edi- 
torials of Miall were reprinted as pamphlets and issued by 
the National Complete Suffrage Union. 2 This association 
published other tracts from the pens of clergymen, among 
which were The Suffrage Demonstrated to be the Right of 
All Men, by an Appeal to Scripture and Common Sense, 
being the substance of a lecture delivered March, 1843, by 
Rev. J. E. Giles of Leeds, and The People's Rights, and 
How to Get Them, by Rev. Thomas Spencer, M. A. 3 

1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 218, 235. 

2 See also National Reform Tracts, nos. 18, 19, 20. 

3 See Dictionary of National Biography, loc. cit., for a list. The fol- 
lowing is the list of what Spencer considers the people's rights: "(1) 
The right to earn a living with the fewest possible impediments. (2) 
The right to keep property when acquired with the fewest possible 
demands upon it. (3) The right of every man to worship God accord- 
ing to his conscience. (4) The right of good government. (5) The 
right to self-government by full, fair, and free representation." Under 
this head he recognizes the necessity of practically all of the demands 
of the Charter — ■ The People's Rights, and How to Get Them. 



114 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [578 

Spencer wrote a long series of pamphlets of an extremely 
radical type, on political and church reform, which aroused 
the Christian Remembrancer to demand how it happened 
that a clergyman " should be allowed to propagate such 
pestilential opinions . . . without being made to feel the 
just punishment for his apostasy by being degraded and 
excommunicated "- 1 Benjamin Parsons, Congregationalist, 
also wrote a series of pamphlets on reform called Tracts 
for the Fustian Jackets and Smock Frocks. 2 - Rev. Henry 
Solly wrote at some length on What Says Christianity ta- 
ttle Present Distress ? , while Rev. Alexander Duncanson 
wrote a tract on The Political Rights of the People. Brews- 
ter's political sermons were published in book form under 
the title of The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses 
Libelled by the Marquis of Abercam, and Other Heritors of 
the Abby Parish. Most of these tracts written by ministers 
are an attempt to reconcile democracy with Christianity and 
to prove that support of universal suffrage is demanded 
from a professor of Christianity. 

At least two ministers were imprisoned for their activities 
in the Chartist movement. J. R. Stephens on August 10, 
1839, was convicted of using seditious language at Hyde 
and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment and the 
giving of sureties for five years. 3 W. V. Jackson was con- 
victed of seditious conspiracy on March 24, 1840 at Liver- 
pool assizes and sentenced to two years imprisonment and 
the finding of sureties for three years. 4 Several others were 

1 Christian Remembrancer, vol. v, p. 441. 

2 Hood, The Earnest Minister (London, 1846), pp. 271 et seq.; also 
appendix of his Life, p. 500. 

3 Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, 1840, vol. xxxviii, no. 600, p. 4; 
Gammage, op. cit., p. 157. 

* Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, 1840, vol. xxxviii, no. 600, p. 8; 
Gammage, op. cit., pp. 178, 179. 



579] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH ne 

arrested and hailed into court but finally discharged, among 
whom were William Essler, dissenting minister, for con- 
spiracy, 1 William Davies, dissenting minister, for harboring 
his nephew, a traitor, 2 and James Scholefield, with fifty-eight 
others, because he 

did unlawfully aid, abet, assist, comfort, support, and encourage 
certain evil-disposed persons to continue and persist in unlaw- 
ful assemblies, threats, intimidation, and violence; and in im- 
peding and stopping of the labour employed in certain trades, 
manufactories, and business with intent thereby to cause terror 
and alarm in the minds of the peaceable subjects of this realm, 
and by the means of such terror and alarm, violently and un- 
lawfully to cause and procure certain great changes in the 
constitution of this realm, as by law established. 3 ' 

Joseph Barker was arrested in 1848 on the charge of con- 
spiracy and sedition but was offered his discharge on condi- 
tion of entering into his own recognizance to appear when 
called upon. Having fifty witnesses ready he refused and. 
demanded a trial. " The Attorney General fumed and 
fretted, and the judge insulted; but at last they gave up 
the task ", and the former entered a nolle prosequi. 4 " 

II. THE COMPLETE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT '*"' 

The Complete Suffrage movement has already been men- 
tioned several times. It was the single part of the struggle 
for democracy during the last hundred years in England in 
which the influence of the clergy and ministers was im- 
portant, if not dominant. The Complete Suffrage move- 
ment, in the words of its founders, was simply an attempt 

1 Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, 1840, vol. xxxviii, no. 600, p. 6. 

2 Ibid., p. 6. 

3 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 232, 235. 

4 Ibid., p. 343; Barker, Modern Skepticism: A Life Story, p. 252. 



H6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [580 

" to unite two dissevered classes, on the question of par- 
liamentary reform ", and " by peaceful and Christian 
means alone " effect " a full, fair, and free representation 
of the people in the British House of Commons ", 1 It was 
distinguished from Chartism in its demands in that it in- 
sisted primarily upon only one of the Six Points; uni- 
versal manhood suffrage. In its antecedents it emanated dis- 
tinctly from the middle class, and included the members: of 
the bourgeoisie who believed that the Reform Bill of 1832 
fell short of a just and ideal representation. 

Many middle-class clergy and laymen had long deplored 
the distrust evinced toward them by the working classes and 
the consequent alienation of those classes from all institutions 
looked upon as characteristically bourgeois, in particular 
the church. It was this situation that led Edward Miall in 
the Nonconformist to urge upon his middle-class constitu- 
ency the justice of the new demands, and their duty as Chris- 
tians of healing the breach between the two classes by 
actively aiding in the fight for universal suffrage. The 
Eclectic Review, another church magazine which cooperated 
with Miall, bluntly reduced the matter to an affair of politi- 
cal expediency when it said : " To expect to make head 
against a Tory government with divided forces is chimeri- 
cal ; and to work for a cooperation of the industrious classes 
without an equitable regard to their claims is to insure to 
ourselves defeat and ruin." 2 

The work begun by Miall in his notable articles was taken 
up by Joseph Sturge upon his return from America, when he 
assumed the leadership as the one man in England best cal- 
culated to conciliate all classes. The campaign to bring all 
classes together on the basis of a reform of the franchise 

1 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference, p. 3. 

2 April, 1843. 



5 Sl] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH ny 

was begun at a conference of Anti-Corn Law deputies on 
Wednesday, November 17, 1 841, at the conclusion of which 
Sturge, in an especially convened meeting, brought forward 
his project. It was determined that a declaration should 
be drawn up and distributed and a conference held of its 
supporters. The idea was enthusiastically approved and 
the conference convened on April 5th at Birmingham, com- 
posed of middle-class reformers and Moral Force Chartists 
to the number of eighty-seven from England and four 
from Ireland, including seventeen ministers. On the execu- 
tive committee were Rev. Noah Jones, Rev. Thomas Spen- 
cer, Rev. Henry Solly and Rev. Edward Miall. The plat- 
form of this conference was set forth in a Bill of Rights 
which, in order to hold the Chartists, included each of the 
Six Points, later embraced in a petition to the House of 
Commons. 1 Much emphasis was laid in the conference 
upon the conception of Christian duty in its relation to' the 
suffrage and the conciliatory spirit shown on both sides in- 
sured the meeting's success. Addresses were issued to 
both the middle and working classes. Sharman Craw- 
ford, a few days later (April 21, 1842) on behalf of the 
conference tested the complete suffrage strength in the 
House. For the motion to consider the proposition he se- 
cured seventy-four votes. 

The conference of April, however, was only preliminary 
to a bigger convention which met in December of the same 
year. To this convention the enfranchised and unenfranchised 
were allowed an equal number of delegates, but the bicker- 
ings over representation augured ill for the success of the 
impending assembly. The spirit of the April gather- 
ing was lacking in December and a break came on the very 
first motion made, that to make the Bill of Rights, accepted 

1 Vide appendix i. 



n8 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [582 

in April, the basis of the discussion, of the conference. 
To many Chartists the Bill of Rights was unknown, while 
many others who had worked and suffered for the Charter 
were unwilling to give up even the name. Lovett, to the 
surprise of many, opposed the motion and moved for a 
consideration of the Charter. A long discussion followed 
in which Miall, Brewster and Spencer spoke for the Bill 
of Rights and Wade for the Charter. The Complete Suf- 
frage party refused a compromise and neither side would 
back down. A vote being taken, which resulted in a 
victory for the Charter, Sturge announced that he and his 
followers felt bound to retire and sit in a separate body. 
The Chartists after a period of confusion and strife broke 
up. The Complete Suffrage party likewise failed to make 
much headway and the failure of the two classes to come 
to a mutual understanding at this conference put any hope 
of a near success of the Charter out of the question. The 
Sturgeites laid the blame of the result upon the Chartists, 
maintaining that they had sacrificed the reality of a great 
political gain for the sentiment of a name. 1 The Chartists 
accused the middle class of lack of sympathy and of at- 
tempting by a strategical political move to hold them at 
arm's-length. 2 

The Complete Suffrage movement, says Sturge' s biog- 
rapher, " breathed for the first time since the return of the 
Stuarts, a Christian principle into political action ". Sl There 
is a large element of truth in this statement, but the plea for 
a close connection between Christianity and politics which 
was made so much of during the convening of the confer- 

1 -Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. i, p. 408. 

2 Cooper, Life of Thomas Cooper, p. 222. 

3 Richard, Henry, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 329. 



^83] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH ng 

ences, the launching of the new movement, 1 and the April 
gathering, was sadly lacking in the Birmingham conference 
of December. A trifle more of it might have turned the 
scale 2 and given a different history to what resulted in dis- 
mal failure. 3 

In the study of the relationship between the Chartist 
movement and the church two facts stand forth preemi- 
nently. In the first place, none of the denominations seemed 
to be able to break away from the prejudices and viewpoint 
of the class which it represented, or to put itself in 
the attitude of the Chartists who thought that Christianity 
was vitally concerned in giving them what they considered 
their just rights and a chance to help themselves. The 
churches which did not go on record as absolutely opposed 
to Chartism looked upon it coldly and with suspicion. 
What cooperation or sympathy the movement received was 
mainly from the small group of ministers whose activities 
have just been recounted, who either believed in democracy 
for its own sake or else had become convinced, with the 
Chartists, that it was the duty of all Christians to aid in the 
political emancipation of their fellow-men. 

The second point is no less significant than the first. 
Although these pages are not intended as a vindication of 
Chartism or any other democratic movement, it is interest- 
ing to note that the " lawless " and " dangerous " demo- 
crats were the leaders in their day in the movement not 
only for a reform in the government, but also' for one 
in the church, for universal and secular education, for 
teetotalism, pacifism, the abolition of the death penalty, 

1 Supra, pp. 22, 23. 

2 Cooper, op. cit., p. 222. 

3 On the Complete Suffrage Movement, see Gammage, op. cit., pp. 241 
et seq.; Cooper's Life, pp. 221 et seq.; Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. i, 
pp. 376-384, 404-408, and the Eclectic Review for April, 1843. 



I2 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [584 

direct taxation and many other principles which to-day 
are either accepted without question or are still goals 
of endeavors. Even the Charter itself has largely been 
incorporated into the law of England. Organized Chris- 
tianity deliberately refused the leadership in political and 
social reformation, and the burden was taken up by the 
proletariat. The necessity thrown upon the workingmen 
of leading the fight for reform in all departments gave to 
Chartism an intellectual and ethical stimulus which made it 
probably the most important social movement in nineteenth- 
century England. 



APPENDIX I 

Petition of the Complete Suffrage Conference of 
April, 1842, to the House of Commons 

Sheweth, 

That in the opinion of your petitioners, every member of 
society has an equal right with every other member to have 
a voice in making the laws which he is called upon to obey. 

That this just principle has already been recognized in the 
British Constitution, for by various ancient statutes it is pro- 
vided, " that no person be compelled to pay any tax or make 
any loan to the king against his will," and by a statute of King 
Edward III, it is declared, that " such laws are against reason 
and the franchise of the land," which enactments are confirmed 
and expounded by the celebrated petition of right, which pro- 
vides that " no man be compelled to make or yield any gift or 
tax, without common consent, by act of parliament." 

That the principle is further sanctioned by the dictates of 
that holy religion, which teaches men to do to others, as they 
would that others should do unto them. 

That in carrying out this principle, only such limitations 
or restrictions should be allowed as naturally arise out of the 
right itself, as are necessary to its practical exercise, — and as 
are equally applicable to all classes of the community. 

That, therefore your petitioners, after due deliberation, 
have arrived at the conviction, that the elective franchise ought 
to be extended to every man of twenty-one years of age, who 
is not deprived of his rights of citizenship, in consequence of 
the verdict of a jury of his countrymen. 

That a false principle of representation namely, that of 

property and 'not persons — having been acted on for a great 

length of time in this country, many abuses have thereby arisen 

and been perpetuated ; and that as the removal of these abuses 

585] J 2i 



122 APPENDIX I [ 5 86 

is necessary in order to render complete suffrage, as defined 
in the preceding propositions, practically beneficial, your peti- 
tioners are of the opinion that the details embodied in the 
following propositions are essential for rendering the repre- 
sentation of the people on the fundamental principle already 
declared, full, fair, and free. 

That every man ought to be able and willing to give an 
open and conscientious vote — yet under the present circum- 
stances of the country, and with the general prevalence of 
bribery and intimidation, that the system of voting by ballot 
should be adopted, in order effectually to secure the free exer- 
cise of the suffrage, which free exercise is sanctioned by acts 
of parliament declaring that " elections ought to be free." 

That for the purpose of securing a fair and equal representa- 
tion of the people, it is necessary that the whole country be 
divided into districts each containing, as nearly as may be, an 
equal number of electors. 

That all legal election expenses, and a reasonable remuner- 
ation to Members of Parliament for their services, ought to be 
borne at the public expense. 

That it is of great importance to secure and maintain the 
responsibility of members to their constituents, and your peti- 
tioners are of the opinion that annual parliaments are a proper 
means for securing this object. 

May it therefore please the Commons to resolve itself into 
a committee of the whole house, to take these premises into 
its deliberate consideration, or adopt such other measures as 
shall secure a full, fair, and free representation of the people, 
according to the fundamental principles hereinbefore stated. 

Your petitioners, in conclusion, would express their heart- 
felt prayer, that Almighty God may direct your councils, for 
the happiness of the nation, the welfare of mankind in general, 
and for His own glory. 

From the Minutes of the Proceedings at the Conference of Repre- 
sentatives of the Middle and Working Classes of Great Britain, Held 
First at the Waterloo Rooms, and Afterwards at the Town Hall. Bir- 
mingham, pp. 19, 20, 21. 



APPENDIX II 

Chartist Gospel — A New Revelation 

THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE DEMOCRATS 

Chapter I 

i. Victoria being Queen of the Isles and of extensive coun- 
tries abroad, Sir Robert Peel being Prime Minister, Sir James 
Graham being Secretary for the Home Department, and the 
Earl de Grey being Governor of the Land of Erin. 

2. In those days came Feargus O'Connor, preaching to the 
whole people of the United Queendom of Great Britain and 
Ireland. 

3. Saying, the day of justice draweth nigh, for the masses 
are awakening from their sleep. 

4. But when he saw the Tories, and the Whigs, and the 
Corn-Law Repealers, come to hear, he said unto them, O gener- 
ation of vipers, what hath induced you to fleece and rob the 
people. 

5. And think not to say unto yourselves we are just before 
God ; Amen, I say unto you, Repent lest you may be punished 
for your evil deeds. 

6. For reason is gone abroad and will soon penetrate the 
minds of all men, and will force them to become lovers of 
liberty. 

7. And thus did Feargus O'Connor harass the tyrants, and 
despots and oppressors of every kind, even from the days of 
William the Foolish and the sixth year of the reign of Victoria. 

8. And the lawyers, and chief priests, and factory masters 
conspired together to put him to death, but they could not for 
fear of the people. 

587] 123 



124 APPENDIX II [ 5 88 

9. But they put him into prison for the long space of six- 
teen months ; even in York castle did they confine him : 

10. So that his fame extended to all parts of the world 
where democracy is known; from the banks of the Thames 
to the banks of the sire of rivers. 

11. In the sixth year of the reign of Victoria, the first 
and last, he went to the city of long chimneys and cotton 
factories to instruct the people, and thousands of thousands 
of people came from the surrounding towns to hear him. 

12. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying; 

13. Ye Chartists are the salt of the earth : Ye are the light 
of the world : let your light so shine before men that they may 
see the truths of the Charter, and seeing believe. 

14. Think not I am come to destroy the Constitution; no, 
but to restore it: nor to injure life; no, but to preserve it. I 
am come to assist the needy, to instruct the ignorant, to confirm 
the timid, to raise you from slavery, and to establish justice. 

15. No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate 
the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and 
despise the other. Ye cannot serve Whiggism and Toryism 
with Chartism. 

16. Judge not rashly or unjustly, lest that you yourselves 
might be so judged; for most assuredly will the people hold 
those that dispense justice responsible for their acts. 

17. Beware of false teachers and pretended friends who 
come to you in sheep's clothing, but who inwardly are ravenous 
wolves. 

18. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, 
and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built 
his home upon a rock and the storms arose and prevailed not 
against it. 

19. And it came to pass as Feargus O'Connor sojourned to 
an inn for refreshment, he saw Jonathan Bairstow; and he 
said unto him, Follow thou me. And when he sat down to 
eat with working men, and when the Whigs and Tories saw 
it, they marvelled amongst themselves that he should do this. 



589] APPENDIX II I2S 

20. And the names of a few of the great apostles of Chart- 
ism were F. O'Connor, the son of Roger and nephew of 
Arthur, and James Leach, and Peter Murray McDouall, and 
John Campbell and J. A. R. Bairstow, and R. K. Philp, and 
William Hill and James Scholefield, and Morgan Williams, 
and George Julian Harney, and George White, and Thomas 
Cooper, and Christopher Doyle, and Bernard McCartney, and 
Thomas Clarke, and James McArthur, and John Duncan, and 
Robert Lowrie, and William Beesley, and Ruffy Ridley, and 
Thomas Wheeler. And there were hundreds of disciples of 
this great party in all parts of the Western Isles. 

The Penny Democrat and Political Illuminator, pp. 17, 18 (no date). 



APPENDIX III 



That the Church of England and Chartism totally oppose 
each other, produce wholly different effects, and lead to widely 
and utterly different destinations, will appear if we just con- 
sider to what they each lead. 



Chartism 
Leads to unholy desires, 
wicked counsels and unjust 
works. 



The Church of England 
Leads us to pray to that 
God from whom "All holy de- 
sires, all good counsel and all 
just works proceed." 



— to perils, dangers, evil 
and mischief. 



— " us to pray to be kept 
from all perils and dangers, 
from all evil and mischief." 



— " to battle, murder and 
sudden death." 



— us to pray and be deliv- 
ered " from battle, and mur- 
der and sudden death." 



— us to curse and oppose 
the magistrates in the execu- 
tion of their duties, in punish- 
ing wickedness and vice. 



— us to beseech God, " to 
bless and keep the magistrates, 
giving them grace to execute 
justice and maintain truth." 



— all nations to war, hatred 
and discord. 



— us to ask God " to give 
to all nations, unity, peace, 
and concord." 



— men out of the way of 
truth, into error and deception. 



126 



— us to pray that God 
" may bring into the way of 
truth, all such as have erred 
and are deceived." 

[590 



59iJ 



APPENDIX III 



Chartism 
— to danger, necessity, and 
tribulation; and leaves those 
that are led by it helpless and 
comfortless. 



127 

The Church of England 
— us to beseech God that 
He " may be pleased to re- 
cover, help, and comfort, all 
that are in danger, necessity 
and tribulation." 



— to the murder of fathers 
and husbands ; and leaves the 
fatherless children and wid- 
ows desolate and oppressed. 



— us to ask God " that it 
may please Him to defend 
and provide for the fatherless 
children and widows, and all 
that are desolate and op- 
pressed." 



— to the disturbance of pub- 
lic worship, to the immediate 
dispersion of the congregation 
when in the middle of their 
devotions, at the sight of the 
pike, pistol, scythe, gun, etc. 



— us to pray thus, " Grant 
O Lord we beseech Thee, that 
the course of this world may 
be so peaceably ordered by 
thy governance, that thy 
Church may joyfully serve 
thee in all godly quietness." 



— to scepticism, infidelity, — us to pray God " to grant 
and disbelief of the Scrip- us grace to hear, read, mark, 
tures. learn, and inwardly digest 

them." 



— to evils which we, on ac- 
count of our sins have right- 
eously deserved. 



— us to beseech God " gra- 
ciously to hear us, that those 
evils, which the craft and sub- 
tilty of the devil or man work- 
eth against us, be brought to 
naught." 



128 



APPENDIX III 



[592 



Chartism 
— professors of religion to 
bring reproach upon the Gos- 
pel, by their wicked and evil 
deeds. 



The Church of England 
— us to ask Almighty God, 
to " grant unto all them that 
are admitted into the fellow- 
ship of Christ's religion, that 
they may eschew those things 
that are contrary to their pro- 
fession and follow all such 
things as are agreeable to the 
same." 



— to anarchy; to disobey 
and rebel against the powers 
that be ; and to the subversion 
of all good government. 



— to poverty, misery, and 
transportation ; the gallows, 
death and hell. 



— us and all subjects duly 
to consider whose authority 
the Queen hath, that we may 
" faithfully serve, honor, and 
humbly obey her." 

— to wealth, peace, free- 
dom, pardon; and beseeches 
the Lord in his boundless 
mercy and love to " deliver 
us from wrath and from ever- 
lasting damnation." 



Jenkin's Chartism Unmasked, 19th ed., pp. 25-27 (Merthyr Tydvil, 
1840). 



APPENDIX IV 
A Prayer 

RECENTLY DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF A CHARTIST CHURCH 

IN LONDON 

O Lord, the fountain of all goodness, by whom our valleys 
at this time are covered with corn, and our hills teeming with 
innumerable flocks, the Maker of one blood of all nations that 
dwell upon the face of the earth, and who hath declared Thy- 
self no respecter of persons by levelling crowned heads with 
beggars in one mighty sepulchre, and mingling the dust of 
proud and haughty tyrants with that of the meanest slave. 
Ere our lips give utterance, thou art acquainted with our 
desires and the interests of our hearts, the cruel and wicked 
judgments of which the tribunals of the land resound, are all 
naked before Thee, and no secret can be hid. Hear the prayer 
of Thy persecuted servant, and the silent breathings of the 
oppressed that surround him, on behalf of those of our brethren 
by whom Thy violated law hath spoken out and for which 
they are now breathing the polluted air of the dungeon, re- 
duced to skeletons, with the months of their harsh and rigor- 
ous endurance. Be Thou with them, support them, preserve 
them, and teach them, that they may come forth from the 
prison cell, as giants refreshed with new wine, mighty in power 
to the pulling down of the strongholds of corruption, and in 
boldness and self possession work out the political redemption 
of the British People. O Lord, hasten the long wished for 
period, when such men as honest O'Connor, Vincent, Lovett, 
Collins, and many others, shall shake the Senate House by 
their eloquence, and direct the realm by their wisdom, that 
iniquity may be compelled to hide her head, and the iron rod of 
593] I2 9 



130 APPENDIX IV [ 594 

despotism be for ever broken; when the laws for the separa- 
tion of husband and wife shall be no more; when those ties 
that have been so rudely broken, shall again be united; when 
bastiles, the monuments of wicked legislation, shall tumble to 
the ground, and peace be proclaimed upon earth, and good will 
amongst men. Hear us, O Lord, on behalf of a wicked and 
persecuting church, which exists by violence and plundering 
of goods, instead of the freewill offerings of the heart; con- 
vert our bishops and clergy to Christianity, and release the 
martyr Thorogood from gaol. May tithe-barns cease to be 
their temples and money their God. May they abandon all 
choice schemes which tend to the destruction of liberty and 
genuine knowledge. While thus assembled to offer prayers 
to Thee, we supplicate for her who sits upon a human bone- 
and-blood built throne, swaying the sceptre of this mighty em- 
pire; may she henceforth counsel her wicked councilors, and 
teach her foolish senators wisdom; that her people's requests 
may be granted, and herself in reality be Queen Victoria by the 
grace of God, instead of queen of slaves. Hear us on behalf 
of the countless thousands of India, whom designing men are 
seeking to destroy by the game of horror and war ; may we, as 
a nation and a people, refuse to take part in the shedding of 
human blood, and show the world, by our lives and conduct, 
we are determined to obey God rather than man. We pray 
for all sorts and conditions of men, for all spies, for all false 
witnesses, for all perjured jurors, for all unjust judges, and 
for all the victims made now at home and abroad; aid and 
assist us in the mighty work we have to perform; prepare us 
to brave persecution, and enable us to surmount every diffi- 
culty and may we never relax our exertions until our birth- 
right, the Charter, do come. That on earth, as in heaven, Thy 
will may be done. To this may all our hearts respond, and 
every tongue exclaim Amen. 

The Chartist Circular, p. 211 (Sept. 19, 1840). 



APPENDIX V 

Rules and Objects of the East London Chartist 
Temperance Association 

(Recommended by the English Chartist Circular, p. 19, vol. 
i, to its constituents for the formation of similar associations.) 

1. That this association be denominated the Chartist Temper- 
ance Association. 

2. That the affairs of this Association shall be managed by a 
Committee of ten, chosen from the first members who join it. 

3. That the Members and Committee shall be elected every 
three months. Seven to be a quorum. 

4. That the Committee shall meet once a week; or oftener, 
if necessary. 

5. That there be a general meeting of the Association once 
every month for the admission of Members— to receive reports 
and for the transaction of general business. 

6. That no rule or article shall be altered without the con- 
sent of a majority of the Members, all of whom shall receive 
a week's notice of the same. 

7. That each Member be recommended to subscribe One 
Penny per week to defray the expenses of the Association. 

8. That it be the duty of this Association to advance the 
moral and intellectual welfare of the Members; by lectures, 
discussions, or any other means. 

9. That the members of the Association are earnestly re- 
commended to take an interest in the welfare of each other by 
trading with, and endeavoring to procure employment for, any 
of the Members who are in want of the same ; and in order 
to facilitate this object a record of each member's trade or 
occupation be kept by the Secretary, and read over at the 
general monthly meetings of the Association. 

5951 ^ 



1 32 APPENDIX V [596 

io. That as early as the Funds will allow, a convenient place 
shall be hired for the use of the Association : and a library of 
useful books be established in order that the Members may 
spend their leisure hours profitably, and set a good example. 

ii. That the Members of this Association adopt as their 
motto the following beautiful rule of justice — "Do unto 
others as ye would they should do unto you." 

12. In order that harmony of sentiment and unanimity of 
action may characterize the Association, all discussion on 
questions of Theology is expressly forbidden. 

13. That persons desirous of becoming Members of this 
Association must abstain from all intoxicating drinks for one 
week previous to their admission, in order to try the principle 
and prevent a relapse. 

14. That to prevent embarrassment in the pecuniary affairs 
of the Association, the Committee will not allow the debts of 
the Association to exceed at any time the sum of ten shillings, 
except by the consent of the majority of the Members, given 
at any public meeting. 

15. That the following be the pledge and qualification of 
membership. 

I voluntarily consent to abstain from all intoxicating 
liquors, except prescribed by a medical person; and, as 
temperance applies to all things, I renounce the use of 
tobacco as a common habit, injurious alike to health and 
good morals, and pledge myself not to use it, except as a 
medicine; and do further declare that I will use all moral 
and lawful means to cause the People's Charter to become 
the law of the land. 



APPENDIX VI 

Charles Kingsley's Appeal to the Chartists, April 
12, 1848 

WORKMEN OF ENGLAND 

You say that you are wronged. Many of you are 
wronged; and many besides yourselves know it. Almost all 
men who have heads and hearts know it — above all, the work- 
ing clergy know it. They go into your houses, they see the 
shameful filth and darkness in which you are forced to live 
crowded together; they see your children growing up in 
ignorance and temptation, for want of fit education; they see 
intelligent and well-read men among you, shut out from a 
Freeman's just right of voting; and they see too the noble 
patience and self-control with which you have as yet borne 
these evils. They see it, and God sees it. 

Workmen of England! You have more friends than you 
think for. Friends who expect nothing from you, but who 
love you, because you are their brothers, and who fear God, 
and therefore dare not neglect you, His children ; men who are 
drudging and sacrificing themselves to get you your rights; 
men who know what your rights are, better than you know 
yourselves, who are trying to get for you something nobler 
than charters and dozens of Acts of Parliament — more useful 
than this " fifty thousandth share in a Talker in the National 
Palaver at Westminster " can give you. You may disbelieve 
them, insult them — you cannot stop their working for you, 
beseeching you as you love yourselves, to turn back from the 
precipice of riot, which ends in the gulf of universal distrust, 
stagnation, starvation. 

You think the Charter would make you free — would to 
597] J33 



I 3 4 APPENDIX VI [ 59 8 

God it would ! The Charter is not bad ; if the men t who use 
it are not bad! But will the Charter make you free? Will it 
free you from slavery to ten-pound bribes? Slavery to beer 
and gin? Slavery to ever}'- spouter who flatters your self- 
conceit, and stirs up bitterness and headlong rage in you? 
That, I guess, is real slavery; to be a slave to one's own 
stomach, one's own pocket, one's own temper. Will the 
Charter cure that? Friends, you want more than Acts of 
Parliament can give. 

Englishmen! Saxons! Workers of the great, cool-headed, 
strong-handed nation of England, the workshop of the 
world, the leader of freedom for seven hundred years, men 
say you have common sense ! then do not humbug yourselves 
into meaning "license," when you cry for "liberty" ; who would 
dare refuse you freedom? for the Almighty God, and Jesus 
Christ, the poor Man, who died for poor men, will bring it 
about for you, though all the Mammonites of the earth were 
against you. A nobler day is dawning for England, a day of 
freedom, science, industry! 

But there will be no true freedom without virtue, no 
true science without religion, no true industry without the 
fear of God, and love to your fellow-citizens. 

Workers of England, be wise, and then you must be free, 
for you will be fit to be free. 

A Working Parson. 

Charles Kingsley, His Letters and Memories of His Life, edited by 
his wife, ioth ed. (London, 1878), vol. i, pp. 156-157. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



LIBRARIES 



Most of the periodicals and pamphlets listed below were consulted 
in the private library of Professor E. iR. A. .Seligman. There are, how- 
ever, quite a few Chartist pamphlets on the shelves of the New York 
Public Library, while several of the important periodicals are to be 
found in the Columbia Library. The Yale Library also contains a few 
of the sources. The library of the Drew Theological Seminary is par- 
ticularly rich in Methodist literature, containing, as it does, the Osborn 
and Tyerman collections of early pamphlets. The Union Theological 
Seminary library contains a collection of the works of Joseph Barker, 
as well as a large number of nineteenth century Catholic pamphlets. 

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Parliamentary Accounts and Papers. 

Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, 1887. Article on Methodism. 

Also Eleventh Edition (N. Y., 191 1). 
New International Encyclopaedia, Second Edition, 1914-1916. 
Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephens, 1885-1912. 

Contemporary Conditions in England 

Engels, Frederick, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 

1844 (London, ed. 1892). 
, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Translated by E. Aveling 

(London, 1892). 
Gibbins, H. de B., Industry in England, 7th ed (New York, 1912). 
Knight, Charles, A Popular History of England (London, 1863-1868). 
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(1878-1890). 
McCarthy, Justin, A History of Our Own Times from the Accession 

of Queen Victoria to the General Election of 1880, 4 vols (London, 

1880). Three additional vols, bring this down to 1901 (London, 

1897-1905). 
Marriott, J. A. R., England Since Waterloo (N. Y. and London, 1913). 
Martineau, Harriet, A History of the Thirty Years' Peace, 1816-1846 

(London, 1877). 
599] *35 



1 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY [600 

Molesworth, William, The History of England (London, 1874) . 
Political History of England, ed. by Wm. Hunt and R. L. Poole in 

twelve volumes. Vol. 12, by S. Low and L. C Sanders, covers the 

period from 1837-1901. 
Prentice, Archibald, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, 2 vols. 

(London, 1853). 
Rose, J. Holland, The Rise and Growth of Democracy in Great Britain 

(London, 1897). 
Rogers, J. E. T., Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 6th ed. (London, 

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Weber, A. F., Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (N. Y., 1899) » 

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1. General Works 

Brewster, Patrick, The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses Libeled 
by the Marquis of Abercam, and the Other Heritors of the Abbey 
Parish (Paisley, 1843). 

Carlyle, Thomas, Chartism (1839). 

Dierlamm, Gotthilf, Die Flugschriftenliteratur 'der Chartistenbewegung 
und ihr Widerhall in der offentlichen Meinung (Leipzig, 1909). 

Dolleans, Edouard, Le Chartisme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1912). 

Gammage, R. G, History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854 (Lon- 
don, new ed., 1894). 

Jones, E. D., Chartism — A Chapter in English Industrial History. 
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Tildsley, John L., Die Entstehung und die okonomischen Grurids'&tze 
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2. Novels 
Disraeli, Benjamin, Coningsby, or The New Generation (London, 1844, 
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, Sybil, or The Two Nations (London, 1845, new edition, 1871). 

Gaskell, Elizabeth G, Mary Barton (1848). 



6oi] BIBLIOGRAPHY ! 37 

Kingsley, Charles, Alton Locke (New York edition, 1850). 

, Yeast (London, 1851). 

Solly, Henry, James Woodford, Carpenter and Chartist, 2 vols. (Lon- 
don, 1881). 

3. Biographies 

Bamford, Samuel, Passages in the Life of a Radical, 2 vols. (London, 

1844). 
Barker, J. T., The Life of Joseph Barker (London, 1880). 
Barker, Joseph, Modem Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of 

Doubt and Back Again. A Life Story. (Philadelphia, 1874.) 

, Teachings of Experience (London, 1869). 

Cooper, Thomas, The Life of Thomas Cooper, 26. ed. (London, 1872). 
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1849). 
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Linton, W. J., Memories (London, 1895). 

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Monypenny, W. F., Life of Benjamin Disraeli (London, 1910- ). 

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Richard, Henry, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge (London, 1864). 

Solly, Rev. Henry, These Eighty Years, or The Story of an Unfinished 
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Stanton, Henry B., Sketches of Reforms and Reformers of Great 
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Trevelyan, G. M., The Life of John Bright (London, 1913). 

Watkins, John, Life, Poetry and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn- 
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The Antidote. Ed. by John Brindley (Chester, 1842). 
Anti-Socialist Gazette. Ed. by John Brindley (Chester, 1841-1842). 
The Beacon, A Weekly Journal of Free Inquiry. Pub. by Henry 

Hetherington (1844). 
Bronterre^s National Reformer in Government, Law, Property, Religion 

and Morals. Ed. by James Bronterre O'Brien (1837). 
The Building Societies Record and Provident Man's Manual (1846). 



138 BIBLIOGRAPHY [6 02 

The Champion of What is True and Right and for the Good of All. 
Ascribed to Richard Oastler but really edited by Rev. J. R. Stephens 
(1849-1850). 

The Christian Investigator, and Evangelical Reformer for the Promo- 
tion of Sound Religious Knowledge, and the Inculcation of Tem- 
perance and Peace, and the Whole Religion of Christ, vol. i (Lon- 
don, 1862). 

Chartist Circular. Published under the supervision of the Universal 
Central Committee for Scotland. Ed. by William Thompson (Glas- 
gow, 1839- 1 842). 

Cooper's Journal: or, Unfettered Thinker and Plain Speaker for Truth, 
Freedom, and Progress (1850). 

The Commonweal (London, 1845). 

The Communist Chronicle and Communist Apostle. Ed. by Goodwyn 
Barmby. 

The Divinearian. Ed. by James E. Duncan. (Commenced in London, 
1849). 

The English Republic. Ed. by W. J. Linton (London, 1851-1854). 

The English Chartist Circular. Ed. by James Harris (London, 1841-42). 

The Evangelical Reformer, and Young Man's Guide, vol. i (1838), 
vol. ii (1839-40). Edited by Joseph Barker (London). 

Evenings with the People. Ed. by Ernest Jones (London, 1856). 

Fleet Papers. Ed. by Richard Oastler while in the Fleet prison, 1840-44. 

The Herald of Redemption. Changed to the Herald of Cooperation, 
beginning with April, 1847. Ed. by James Hole (1847-1848). 

Herald of the Future (1839-1840). 

The Labourer: A Monthly Magazine of Politics, Literature , Poetry, 
etc. Ed. by Feargus O'Connor and Ernest Jones (1847-48). 

The Life Boat: A Weekly Political Pamphlet. Ed. by William Hill 
(started in 1843). 

The London Chartist Monthly Magazine (started in June, 1843). 

The London Democrat. Ed. by George Julian Harney and others 
(started April 13, 1839). 

McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal. Ed. by P. M. McDouall 
(Manchester, 1841). 

The Model Republic. Published by the Society for the Encouragement 
of Socialist and Democratic Literature. 

The Monthly Circular of the Cooperative League. (Isle of Man and 
London.) 

The Moral Reformer. Ed. by J. Livesey (London, 1838-1839). 

The Movement, Anti-Persecution Gazette, and Register of Progress: 
A Weekly Journal. Ed. by G. J. Holyoake, assisted by M. G. 
Ryall (1843-1845). 

The National: A Library for the People. Ed. by W. J. Linton (Lon- 
don, 1839). 



603 ] BIBLIO GRAPH Y 139 

The National Instructor (London, 1850-1851). 

The New Age, Concordium Gazette and Temperance Advocate (Lon- 
don, 1843- 1844). 

Notes to the People. Ed. by Ernest Jones. 2 vols. (1851-1852). 

The Oracle of Reason: or Philosophy Vindicated. Ed. by Thomas 
Paterson, vol. i (London, 1842). Originally edited by Charles 
■Southwell until sentenced to prison, Jan. 15, 1842, for blasphemy. 

The People: Their Rights and Liberties, Their Duties and Their In- 
terests. Ed. by Joseph Barker (Wortley, 1849-1852). 

The People's Press and Monthly Historical Newspaper. Ed. by Wil- 
liam Shirrefs (1847). 

The People's Magazine. Ed by J. R. -Stephens (Leeds, 1841-1842). 

The Political Economist; and loumal of Social Science (1856-1857). 

The Power of Pence. Ed. by O'Brien (1848-1849). 

The Precursor of Unity. A Monthly Magazine for the Many (started 
January, 1844). 

The Puppet Show (1S48). 

The Reasoner. Ed. by G. J. Holyoake (1849 et seq.). 

The Reasoner: and Herald of Progress. 

The Reformer. Ed. by Washington Wilkes. No. 1 of the new series 
appeared Jan., 1846. 

The Reformer's Almanac and Companion to the Almanacs, for 1848. 
Ed. by Joseph Barker. 

The Republican: A Magazine Advocating the Sovereignty of the People. 
Ed. by C G. Harding (London, 1848). 

Reynolds Weekly Newspaper. Ed. by G. W. M. Reynolds. 

The Shepherd. Ed. by Rev. J. E. Smith (London, 1834-1837). 

The Social Pioneer: or Record of the Progress of Socialism. Ed. by 
Epicurus (1839). 

The Social Reformer. Ed. by J. Bronterre O'Brien and Friends (Lon- 
don, 1849). 

The Spirit of the Times; or the Social Reformer. Published by Luke 
Hansard (London, 1847). 

The Standard of Freedom. Published by J. Cassell (London, 1848). 

The Ten Hours Advocate and Journal of Literature and Art (1846- 

1847). 
The Truth Teller. Published by B. S. Treanor (Stalybridge, 1848). 
The Uxbridge Spirit of Freedom: and Workingman's Vindicator. 

Conducted by Workingmen (1849). 
The Weekly Adviser and Artisan's Companion (iStoke-upon-Trent, 

1852). 
The Voice of the People. A Supplement to All Newspapers (April 22, 

1848, to May 13, 1848). 



I 4 BIBLIOGRAPHY [604 

The Working-Man's Charter; or the Voice of the People, Advocating 

Their Spiritual and Moral Improvement (London, 1849). 
The Working Man's Friend, and Family Instructor. 

5. Pamphlets 

The Speech of Lord Ashley, M. P., in the House of Commons on Tues- 
day, Feb. 28, 1843, on " The Moral and Religious Education of the 
Working Classes." 38 pp. (London, 1843). 

Barker, Joseph. Eight bound volumes of pamphlets in the Union The- 
ological Seminary Library. 

, The Gospel Triumphant: or a Defense of Christianity against 

the Attacks of the Socialists; and an Exposure of the Infidel 
Character and Mischievous Tendency of the Social System of 
Robert Owen (Lancaster, 1839). 

Bayley, R. S., History and Objects of the People's College, Sheffield. 
A Lecture delivered at the Eastern Institution on Thursday eve- 
ning, Dec. 18, 1845. 

Beard, J. R., The Religion of lesus Christ Defended from the Assaults 
of English Chartism. In nine lectures (London. No date). 

Brown, George, An Address to All Classes of Reformers, But Especi- 
ally to Those who are Unjustly Excluded from the Franchise. 16 
pp. (Leicester, 1848). 

Carlile, Richard, An Address to that Portion of the People of Great 
Britain and Ireland Calling Themselves Reformers, on the Political 
Excitement of the Time (Manchester, 1839). 

The Chartist Correspondence (reprinted from the Free Press), serial 
no. xiii. 

Close, Rev. F., A Sermon Addressed to the Chartists of Cheltenham, 
Sunday, August 18, 1839, on the Occasion of Their Attending the 
Parish Church in a Body (London, 1839). 

, A Sermon Addressed to the Female Chartists of Cheltenham, 

Sunday, August 25, 1839, on the Occasion of Their Attending the 
Parish Church in a Body (London, 1839). 

The Contract: Monopolies and Monopolists Tested by the Example of 
Jesus Christ by a Member of the Conference of Ministers of Re- 
ligion of All Denominations, lately held in Manchester (London, 
1842). 

Cooper, Thomas, Two Orations Against Taking Away Human Life, 
under Any Circumstance ; and in Explanation, and Defense, of the 
Misrepresented Doctrine of Non-Resistance. 56 pp. (London, 1846). 

Craig, E. T., The Irish Land and Labour Questions Illustrated in the 
History of Ralahine and Cooperative Farming (London, 1882). 

DeBary, R. B., A Charm Against Chartism (London, 1839). 

The Designs of the Chartists, and Their Probable Consequences. A 



605] BIBLIOGRAPHY I4I 

letter addressed to Mr. James Ibbetson, Bookseller, Bradford. 
(Copied from the Leeds Mercury of August 3, 1839.) 12 pp. 

A Narrative of the Experiences and Sufferings of William Dodd, a 
Factory Cripple. Written by Himself. 45 pp. (London, 1841). 

An Earnest Plea both for the Poor and for the Rich. A Letter to the 
Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, Bart., In Which it is Shown 
How the New Poor-Law Machinery May be Made the Instrument 
of Diffusing Immediate and Universal Blessings Throughout the 
Land. By a Parochial Clergyman. 15 pp. (1842). 

England and Physical Force Chartism (1838). 

A Few Words to the Chartist by a Friend. 16 pp. 

A Few Words with Henry Vincent by a Radical Conservative (1840). 

Finsbury Lectures. Reports of Lectures Delivered at the Chapel in 
South Place, Finsbury, by W. J. Fox (London, 1835). 

A Friendly Appeal, or Word of Advice, to the Middle and Working 
Classes of Great Britain, etc. (London, 1839). 

Gore, Montague, A Letter to the Middle Classes on the Present Dis- 
turbed State of the Country, Especially zvith Reference to the 
Chartist Meetings (London, 1839). 

The Trial of George Jacob Holyoake on an Indictment for Blasphemy. 
Notes taken by Mr. Hunt (London, 1842). 

Hunt, Thomas, Chartism, Trades Unionism, and Socialism; or, Which 
is the Best Calculated to Produce Permanent Relief to the Working 
Classes? A Dialogue. 20 pp. (London, 1840). 

Jenkins, Rev. Evan, Chartism Unmasked, 19th ed., Merthyr Tydvil, 1840. 

Jones, Ernest, The Right of Public Meeting: A Letter Addressed (be- 
fore sentence) to Lord Chief Justice Sir Thomas Wilde (reprinted 
in 1887). 

A Letter from One of the Special Constables in London on the Late 
Occasion of their being Called Out to Keep the Peace. 23 pp. (Lon- 
don, 1848). 

Jones, William, Speech on the Charter. 16 pp. 

Larkin, Charles, A Letter to the Reformers of South Shields on the 
Elective Franchise. 20 pp. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1837). 

Leach, J., The Working Man's Arguments in Favor of the Charter. 
8 pp. (Manchester, 1848). 

Letters to the Mob by Libertas. 21 pp. (London, 1848). 

A Letter to the Radicals and Chartists of Manchester and Lancashire 
on the Position of the Chartists and Corn-Law Repealers by a Corn- 
Law Repealer and a Chartist (Manchester, 1840). 

Letter from Mr. Lovett to Messrs. Donaldson and Mason. Containing 
his Reasons for Refusing to be Nominated Secretary of the Na- 
tional Charter Association. 4 pp. 

Lovett, William, Address from the Members of the National Associa- 



142 BIBLIOGRAPHY [606 

Hon for Promoting the Political and Social Improvement of the 
People to the Working Classes of France, on the Subject of War. 
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Lovett, William, Cabinet-maker, and John Collins, Tool-maker, Chart- 
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, Justice Safer than Expediency: An Appeal to the Middle 



Classes on the Question of the Suffrage (London, i£ 
— , Social and Political Morality (London, 1853). 
— , The Radical Reformers of England, Scotland and Wales to the 



Irish People. Voted to be written and sent by a meeting of dele- 
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The Trial of William Lovett, Journeyman Cabinet-maker, for a Se- 
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1839). 

Speeches Delivered at the Soiree, Held at the National Hall, Holborn, 
on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1848, upon the Occasion of the Presenta- 
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Manifesto of the General Convention of the Industrious Classes, signed 
by Hugh Craig, Chairman, and William Lovett, Secretary. 

Marshall, Andrew, The Duty of Attempting to Reconcile the Unen- 
franchised with the Enfranchised Classes (Edinburgh, 1841). 

Trial of Peter Murry McDouall, Surgeon of Lancashire, and Member 
of the National Convention from Ashton-under-Lyne, in the Crown 
Court at the City of Chester, on Friday, the 16th of August, for a 
Misdemeanor. Before Baron Gurney. Revised and Corrected by 
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The Members of the Working Man's Association to their Fellow 
Workers of All Trades. 4 pp. 

Memoranda of the Chartist Agitation in Dundee. 80 pp. (Dundee). 

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference of Representatives of 
the Middle and Working Classes of Great Britain, Held First at 
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Moral Force: A Reply to an Address Entitled "Physical Force." By 
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Morgan, John Minton, The Christian Commonwealth. 

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Munns, Rev. Thomas, A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Ashley, on the 
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Reference to Improvement in the Condition of the Same Classes in 



607] BIBLIOGRAPHY 143 

Manufacturing Districts, and Large Towns Generally (Birming- 
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A Night with the Chartists, Frost, Williams, and Jones. A Narrative 
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Jones, William, Speech on the Charter. 16 pp. 

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O'Connor, Arthur, State of Ireland (London, 1843). 

Trial of Feargus O'Connor, Esq., and 5<? other Chartists on a Charge 
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Robert Kemp Phelp's Vindication of His Political Conduct and an Ex- 
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The Real Chartist; Patriotically Addressed to the Consideration of All 
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The Rise and Fall of Chartism in Monmouthshire. 90 pp. 

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Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers. 23 pp. 



144 BIBLIOGRAPHY [6og 

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Slaney, Robert A., Reports of the House of Commons on the Educa- 
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Socialism. A Commentary on the Public Discussion on the Subjects 
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■ , The Second Reformation (1842). 

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■ , No Revolution. A Word to the People of England. 3d ed., 

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6 -j BIBLIOGRAPHY 145 

Is There Not One Law for the Rich and Another for the Poor? Being 
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' Lovettism vs. Chartism. A Chartist Sermon. _ 

Whiggery, Chartism, and Truth. Being an Exposure of the Whigs 
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Contemporary Review, article on Gerald Massey, in May, 1904. 
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THE CHURCHES 

The Church of England and the Catholic Church 

1. History 

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MacCaffrey, Rev. James, History of the Catholic Church m the Nine- 
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146 BIBLIOGRAPHY [610 

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Perry, G. G., A History of the English Church. Third Period (Lon- 
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Rogers, J. G., The Church Systems of England in the Nineteenth Cen- 
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Spence, Very Rev. H. D. M., The Church of England. 4 vols. (London, 
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Thureau-Dangin, Paul, The English Catholic Revival in the Nineteenth 
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Abbott, Edwin A., The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman (Lon- 
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Arnold, Frederick, Robertson of Brighton (London, 1886). 

Bloomfield, Alfred, A Memoir of Charles James Bloomtield, D. D., 
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Liddon, H. P., Life of Edward B. Pusey, 4 vols. (London, 1893). 

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Mozley, Anne (editor), Letters and Correspondence of John Henry 
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Newman, J. H., Apologia Pro Vita Sua ('London, 1864; Everyman's 

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British Critic. 
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Tracts for the Times. Especially No. 86 

The Methodist Church 
1. History 

A New History of Methodism. Edited by W. J. Townshend, 'H. B. 
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I4 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY [612 

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Methodism as It Is, With Some of its Antecedents, its Branches and 
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Gregory, Benj., A Handbook of Scriptural Church Principles and Wes- 
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Pierce, William, The Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of the Wes- 
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Skewes, J. H., A Complete and Popular Digest of the Polity of Metho- 
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Wansborough, Charles E., Handbook and Index to the Minutes of the 
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Watson, Richard, An Affectionate Address. 

Williams, H. W., The Constitution and Polity of Wesleyan Methodism 
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1859, 1887). 
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613] BIBLIOGRAPHY 749 

Faulkner, J. Alfred, The Socialism of John Wesley, in "Social Tracts 
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1873). 
Jobson, Frederick J., A Tribute to the Memory of Rev. Jdbez Bunting, 

D. D. (London, 1858). 
, The Beloved Disciple: A Sermon Preached in Wesley Chapel, 

Lincoln, Jan. 26, 1868, on the Death of Rev. John Hannah, D. D., 

With a Biographical Sketch of the Deceased (London, 1868). 
Macdonald, Frederic W., The Life of William Morley Punshon. 3d ed. 

(London, 1888). 
M'Cullagh, T. M., The Earnest Life: Memorials of the Rev. Thomas 

Keysell (London, 1867). 
M'Owan, John, A Man of God; or, Providence and Grace Exemplified 

in a Memoir of the Rev. Peter M'Owan (London, 1873). 

4. Magazines 

The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. 

The Wesleyan Association Magazine. 

The Methodist New Connexion Magazine. 

The Primitive Methodist Magazine. 

The Wesleyan Vindicator. Published during the crisis of 1849. 



The Minutes of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. 

The Other Nonconformist Churches 

Carlile, J. C, The Story of the English Baptists (London, 1905). 

Dale, P.. W., History of English Congregationalism (N. Y. and Lon- 
don, 1907). 

Book of Christian Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends in 
Great Britain (London, 1883). 

Epistles from the Yearly Meeting of Friends, Held in London, to the 
Quarterly and Monthly Meetings in Great Britain, Ireland, and 
Elsewhere; from 1681 to 1857, Inclusive: With an Historical In- 
troduction, and a Chapter Comprising Some of the Early Epistles 
and Records of the Yearly Meetings. 2 vols. (London, 1858). 

Emmott, Elizabeth B., The Story of Quakerism (London, 1908). 

Miall, Edward, The British Churches. 2d ed. (London, 1850). 



150 BIBLIOGRAPHY [614 

Stoughton, John, History of Religion in England. 8 vols. (London, 

1881-84). 
Waddington, John, Congregational History. Continuation to 185a 

(London, 1878). 

Adamson, William, The Life of Joseph Parker (London and Edin- 
burgh, 1902). 

Arnot, William, Life of James Hamilton (London, 1870). 

Memoirs of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, with Extracts from Her Letters 
and Journal. Edited by Two of Her Daughters. 2 vols. (Phila- 
delphia, 1848). 

Hood, Edwin P., The Earnest Minister: A Record of the Life and 
Selections from Posthumous and Other Writings of the Rev. Ben- 
jamin Parsons, of Ebley, Gloucestershire (London, 1846). 

Macleod, Donald, Memoirs of Norman Macleod (Toronto, 1876). 

Miall, Arthur, Life of Edward Miall (London, 1884). 

Parker, Joseph, A Preacher's Life (London, 1899). 

Stoughton, John, Recollections of a Long Life (London, 1894). 



The Eclectic Review. 
The Evangelical Magazine. 
The Nonconformist. 

General Religious Thought 

Hall, T. C, The Social Meaning of Modern Religious Movements in 

England (N. Y., 1900). 
Tulloch, John, Movement of Religious Thought in Britain during the 

Nineteenth Century (London, 1885). 



INDEX 



Alton Locke, 20, 79 

Anti-Corn Law Agitation, 30, 40, 

85, 103 
Anti-Corn Law Conference, 25, 98 

Baptists, 45, 100 

Barker, Joseph, 19, 28, 33, 51, 62, 

63, 95, 105, 106, 107, in, 115 
Binns, George, 104 
Brewster, Rev. Patrick, 18, 107, 

in, 112, 114, 118 
Bright, John, 104 
Broad Church Movement, 75, 80 
Bronterre's National Reformer, 34 
Bunting, Rev. Jabez, 83, 85, 89 

Carlile, Richard, 15, 18 
Catholic Church, 104 
Chartism Unmasked, 60 
Chartist Circular, 42, 47, 49 
Chartist Teetotal Societies, 54, 55, 

131 
Christian Chartist Churches, 22, 

27, 42, 102, 108 
Christian Guardian and Church 

of England Magazine, 65 
Christian Observer, 38, 67 
Christian Remembrancer, 66 
Christian Socialists, 80 
Church of England Magazine, 13, 

6 7 
Cleave, John, 47, 48, 54 
Complete Suffrage, 22, 96, 101, 

115, 121 
Congregational Church, 24, 98 
Congregational Magazine, 98 
Coningsby, 72 
Cooper's Journal, 33 
Cooper, Thomas, 16, 18, 33, 51, 55, 

95, 101, 102 
Cooper, Walter, 15, 18 
Convention of 1851, 34, 56 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 72 
615] 



Eclectic Review, gg, 116 

Education, 46. 

Elliott, Ebenezer, 30 

Engels, Frederick, 12, 15 

The English Chartist Circular, 54 

Established Church, 11, 26, 28, 58, 

62, 87, 126 
Established Church of Scotland, 

107 

Female Chartist Societies, 56 
Fox, W. J., 19, 51, 106, in 
Frost, John, 41 

Giles, Rev. Eustace, 10, 18, 28, 113 
Griffeth, Rev. William, 83, 91 

Hetherington, Henry, 15, 47, 50, 54 
Hill, Rev. William, 26, 28, 35, in, 

113 

Holyoake, G. J., 15, 18, 76 

Jackson, Rev. William, 101, 114 
Jenkinson, Rev. John, 101, 112 

Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 15, 68, 75, 
133 

London Working Men's Associa- 
tion, 9, 53, 56, 80 
Lovett, William, 19, 33, 46-54, 57 

Manchester Conference of Minis- 
ters, 107 

Maurice, Rev. F. D., 15, 75-79 

Methodist New Connexion, 82. 90, 
95, 106 

Miall, Rev. Edward, 13, 18, 22, 98, 
99, 112, 113, 116-118 

Militarism, 56 

National Complete Suffrage 
Union, 99 

New Poor Law, 10, 94 

151 



152 



INDEX 



[616 



The Non-Conformist, 34, 98, 99, 

101, 113, 116 
Northern Star, 16, 26, 68, 113 

Oastler, 'Richard, 93 

O'Brien, Bronterre, 31-33, 47, 74. 

104 
O'Connor, Feargus, 28, 49, 50, 74, 

104, 108, in 
CMalley, Rev. Thaddeus, 18, 105, 

112 
O'Neill, Arthur, 19, 44, 102 
Oxford Movement, 12, 58, 70, 71, 

75 

People, The, 29, 106, 113 
Politics for the People, 77 
Presbyterian Church, 105 
Primitive Methodists, 83, 86, 90 

Quakers, 102 

Reform Bill, 9, 14, 59, 68, 70, 83 
Reformer, The, 33, 49 
Reformer's Almanac, 55, 113 
Ritchie, Rev. John, 18, 109, 112 
Robertson, Rev. F. W., 12, 78, 79 



Sadler, M. T., 93 

Scholefield, Rev. James, 28, 90, 

H3', 115 
Solly, Rev. Henry, 17, 19, 27, 28, 

57, 105, 114, 117 
Spencer, Rev. Thomas, 18, 22, 28, 

31, 112, 113, 117, 118 
Stephens, Rev. J. R., 18, 22, 27, 31, 

83, 84, 87, 93, in, 113, 114 
Sturge, Joseph, 18, 22, 103, 104, 116 
Sybil, 72 

Temperance and Chartism, 52 

Unitarian Church, 106 

Wade, IRev. Arthur S., 18, in, 

112, 118 
Watson, James, 15, 18, 47, 48, 54 
Weekly Adviser, 29, 33, 49 
Wesleyan Methodist Church, 12, 

19, 24, 26, 30, 33, 45, 80-95 
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 88 
Wesleyan Reform Movement, 83 

Young England, 71, 72, 75 



VITA 

The author of this monograph was born in Taylor, Pa., 
February 25, 1890. After graduation from Wyoming 
Seminary, Kingston, Pa., he entered Wesleyan University, 
Middletown, Conn., receiving the degree of B. A. in 191 3. 
Entering Columbia University in February, 19 14, he was 
awarded the degree of M. A. a year later. While at Co- 
lumbia he attended the lectures of Professors Robinson, 
Shotwell, Schuyler, Muzzey, Hayes and Krehbiel in Euro- 
pean History; Professors Dunning and Beard in American 
History; Professors Seligman, Seager and Simkhovitch in 
Economics ; and the seminar of Professor Shotwell. 

i53 



OP CONGRESS 




